1842 between £2,000,000 and £5,000,000 sterling, were destroyed. In return, Elliot gave the merchants a bond on the English Government. Commissioner Lin next demanded that henceforward all vessels engaged in the trade should be confiscated, and all traders should suffer death. Elliot naturally refused these extravagant demands; bade the merchants evacuate Canton; himself withdrew to Macao, and called upon the Governor-General of India-Lord Auckland-for armed assistance. It would serve no useful purpose to recount in detail the ensuing acts of violence on both sides, the outrages, the reprisals, and recriminations which in 1840 eventuated in war. The whole busi ness was, to say the least, unsavoury; but, whatever the indiscretion of British agents and the lawlessness of British subjects on the spot, no blame attaches to the Home Government. Their views had been admirably expressed in a letter from Sir James Graham to Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General of India : "Trade with China is our only object; conquest there would be as dangerous as defeat, and commerce never prospers when force is used to sustain it. No glory is to be gained in a victory over the Chinese. Our factory there can only thrive by a ready compliance with the laws, the prejudices, and even the caprices of a nation which we seek to propitiate, and the super-cargoes must not imagine that great national interests are to be sacrificed to a spirit of haughty defiance mixed with contempt for the laws and customs of an independent people. Our grand object is to keep peace, and by the mildest means, by a plastic adaptation of our manners to theirs, to extend our influence in China with the view of extending our commercial relations. It is not a demonstration of force that is required, but proofs of the advantage which China reaps from her peaceful intercourse with our nation. We are therefore most unwilling to send our ships of war to Canton. . . ." 3 Treaty of The sentiments are almost too obviously "correct". But it is Nankin, easier to be "correct" at Whitehall than in the Far East, and the two nations drifted into a war, from which, as Graham truly said, no glory was to be reaped. But though glory was absent from the war, substantial advantages were embodied in the Treaty of Nankin by which, in 1842, the war was brought to an end. The Chinese 1 2 1828-1835. 3 Parker, Graham, i, 150. 1841] TREATY OF NANKIN 159 agreed to cede Hong Kong to England, to pay a sum of £6,000,000 sterling as "ransom," compensation, and indemnity, and to open to the trade of the world the five port towns (henceforward known as Treaty Ports) of Canton, Amoy, Shanghai, Ningpo, and Foo-ChowFoo. On the other hand, the Chinese, despite the plausible arguments of the English negotiators, refused to legalize the opium trade. The result was that a huge smuggling trade in the drug sprang up; the profits derived from it were in proportion to the risks, and a class of traders were attracted to it who gave much trouble in the future alike to the Chinese and to the English Government. At the time, however, the Treaty of Nankin was regarded with not irrational satisfaction in England. But before it was concluded the Whig Ministry had fallen, and all the credit of the achievement fell to their successors. The same mail which brought the news of the signature of the Treaty of Nankin brought the still more welcome news of the recapture of Kábul. The Conservative Ministry were in luck. Alike for the disasters in Afghanistan and the sordid mingling of success and failure in China, the Whig Government were only in the remotest degree responsible; whatever measure of party advantage accrued from these events was credited to Sir Robert Peel. Not inappropriately might Lord Melbourne have addressed to his successor the words of Henry the Fourth as he bequeathed the Crown to Prince Hal:— I myself know well How troublesome it sat upon my head: For all the soil of the achievement goes How far the prediction was verified the next chapter will show. The Premiership of Peel The Cabinet ΟΝ CHAPTER IX SIR ROBERT PEEL'S MINISTRY (1841-1846) N the resignation of Lord Melbourne the Queen called upon Sir Robert Peel to form a Government, and the task was at once accepted. By general consent Peel had been, for some years past, the foremost figure in the House of Commons; in debating power he was inferior only to Lord Stanley; in administrative experience he was second to none; his patience and sagacity had reconstructed his party, and in the esteem alike of his colleagues and of the constituencies no man stood higher. He was no courtier -an "odd shy man" was the Queen's first impression-but he gradually won the confidence of the Sovereign, while the Prince Consort became his firm disciple and sincere friend. In the Cabinet his supremacy was unquestioned, and over every department he exercised a personal supervision such as few Prime Ministers have attempted, and none perhaps has maintained. "We never," wrote his chief lieutenant, Graham, "had a Minister who was so truly a first Minister as he is. He makes himself felt in every department and is really cognizant of the affairs of each." "You have been Prime Minister," said Mr. Gladstone to Peel in 1846, "in a sense in which no other man has been it since Mr. Pitt's time." Nor was his pre-eminence due to the inferiority of his colleagues. On the contrary, the Conservative Cabinet of 1841 was in personnel perhaps the most brilliant of the nineteenth century. The Duke of Wellington led the House of Lords without portfolio, though, in 1842, he became Commander-in-Chief; Lord Lyndhurst became for the third time Chancellor; Lord Aberdeen was Foreign, Lord Stanley Colonial, and Sir James Graham Home Secretary; Mr. Henry Goulburn was at the Exchequer and Sir Henry Hardinge was Secretary at War. For obvious reasons there was more than the usual amount of reconstruction during Peel's term of office, 1846] THE "CONDITION OF ENGLAND " 161 and among the younger recruits thus introduced into the Cabinet in 1845 were Mr. Sidney Herbert and Mr. Gladstone. Though Peel was without a second, "his right-hand man was Sir James Graham. "Your cordial support and entire and unreserved confidence have been," wrote Peel to Graham in 1846, "my chief stay." Capable as were the Cabinet and trusted as was their chief, Condition the condition of affairs confronting them when they took office of affairs was exceedingly grave. Embarrassing wars in China and Afghanistán; difficulties of various kinds in Canada, the West Indies, and South Africa; at home, terrible distress among the poor; acute commercial depression; much unemployment; a falling revenue and a rapidly mounting deficit. "Can there be," asked Peel in 1841, "a more lamentable picture than that of a Chancellor of the Exchequer seated on an empty chest, by the pool of bottomless deficiency, fighting for a Budget ?" Peel was determined not to wallow in the old economic ruts, but he wisely refused to make a premature disclosure of his policy, and after the re-election of Ministers Parliament sat only for a few weeks in the autumn of 1841. Goulburn borrowed a sum of £5,000,000, half of which was applied to meeting the deficit of the year, and half to the funding of Exchequer Bills. This necessary business done, Parliament was prorogued on October 7th. "Condi The winter of 1841-1842 was one of the worst, in an industrial The and economic sense, through which this country has ever passed. tion of A series of bad harvests combined with the Corn Laws to raise the England" price of bread; and while prices were high wages were low. Bread was at 10d. to 1s. 2d. the quartern loaf; lump sugar cost 7d. to 8d.; tea 4s. to 8s. a pound, or more generally 6d. an ounce; currants 9d., and soap 6d. ; butter and meat were relatively cheap, but neither of these articles formed an item in the diet of the labouring classes. Agricultural wages were 9s. to 10s. a week, without board, or 1s. to 1s. 6d. for unmarried labourers living in the house. Masons, bricklayers, painters, carpenters, and plumbers got about 3 d. an hour or 18s. for a week of sixty-four hours. But, low as wages were, there were many who could not earn them. One person in every eleven was a pauper. In Manchester 8,666 persons had a weekly income of under 144d.; in Bolton there were 6,995 persons whose average earnings were 13d. a week; in Leeds 1 Rosebery, Peel, p. 52. Tariff reform The Corn there were 20,000 persons whose average earnings were under 1s., and in Stockport many people earned less than 10d. In Manchester 116 mills were stopped; in Bolton 30 out of 50, and in Stockport so few factories were at work and so many houses unoccupied that the town itself was described as being "to let ". 1,500 houses were empty in Bolton, 2,000 in Preston; 12,000 families were supported by charity in Manchester, and in Birmingham one-fifth of the entire population were in receipt of poor-relief. From most of the manufacturing centres, from Paisley and Glasgow, Bury, Rochdale, Wigan, and Coventry came the same tale of unemployment, distress, and starvation.1 The condition of things was appalling, and many remedies were proposed. The Chartists prescribed electoral reform; Carlyle favoured a sort of industrial feudalism, combined with education and emigration; Peel believed that only by fiscal reform was it possible to stimulate industry, to mitigate distress, and to restore a balance between revenue and expenditure. To fiscal reform, therefore, he devoted most of his thought and administrative energy during the next five years. The most urgent need of the moment was cheaper and more abundant food. "We must" (as Peel wrote to Croker) "make this country a cheap country for living." The session of 1842 opened on February 3rd, and the Queen's Speech recommended Parliament to consider "the state of the finances and the expenditure of the country" and more particularly "the laws which affect the imports of corn and other articles". For some such announcement the country had been prepared by the resignation of the Duke of Buckingham, rightly regarded as the special representative of the agricultural interest in the Cabinet. The Duke of Buccleuch took his place as Lord Privy Seal, and about the same time Lord Ellenborough was appointed Governor-General of India, being succeeded at the Board of Control by Lord Fitzgerald. With a Cabinet thus partially reconstructed Peel addressed himself to the problem of tariff reform. His first task was a revision of the Corn Laws. For a century and a half the conditions of wheat production had been an object 1 1 Cf. Ashworth, Recollections of Cobden and the League; The Hungry Forties ; Speeches of Sir James Graham in Parliament and much pamphlet literature. 2 Better known as Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald-O'Connell's opponent in the Clare election of 1828. |