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Home Politics and Parties from 1815 to 1832 Beginning of Reforms, 1822-1827 |
Beginning of Reforms, 1822-1827With 1822 begins the second of our subdivisions. In that year what was to all intents and purposes a new ministry came into power, though it had the same leader in Lord Liverpool. Of the more reactionary or ultra - Tory ministers who had influenced the Government's policy, Addington retired from office (though not at once from the cabinet), and Lord Castlereagh, the foreign secretary and leader of the House of Commons, committed suicide. The chief of the new leaders in the cabinet was Canning. He had had a brilliant youth. At Eton he had edited a paper with such ability that a London publisher gave him £50 for its copyright. Whilst at Oxford, he was introduced to Fox, and was invited to the great Whig houses. The French Revolution, however, converted him into a Tory, and he became, in 1796, under secretary for foreign affairs in Pitt's ministry, and made some famous contributions, satirizing the supporters of the Revolution, in a weekly newspaper called the Anti-Jacobin. On Pitt's resignation in 1801 Canning went out of office, but from 1804-6 he was a member of Pitt's second administration. In 1807 he became secretary of state for foreign affairs in the Portland ministry. The timely seizure of the Danish fleet in that year was due to him, and he was a strong supporter of our intervention in Spain and Portugal. Differences of opinion in the ministry between Castlereagh and Canning led to a duel between them in 1809 (The disagreement arose out of the failure of the Walcheren Expedition in 1809. In the duel each missed his first shot; Canning's second shot hit the button of Lord Castlereagh's coat, and Lord Castlereagh's second wounded Canning in the thigh), but neither was seriously injured. Shortly afterwards, on Perceval becoming prime minister, Canning resigned, though, as an independent member, he advocated energetic measures in the Peninsula. When the war was over, he had served for four years in Lord Liverpool's ministry. In politics a moderate Tory, he became in 1822 leader of the House of Commons and secretary for foreign affairs. Two other moderate Tories took prominent offices: Huskisson became president of the board of trade, and Peel took Addington's place as home secretary.As a result of this reconstitution of the ministry, the period, as it has been called, of legislative stagnation, which had lasted for some sixty years, came to an end. During the next five years (1822 - 7) niany useful reforms were made. Canning inaugurated a new Liberal foreign policy. Proposals were made - which were not converted into laws till later - to make the Corn Laws of 1815 less stringent. Huskisson succeeded in repealing the Combination Law of 1800, which pressed so hardly upon workmen, and the Navigation Laws, which were held to be no longer necessary to protect our shipping. Considered in his own time an advanced free trader, Huskisson was in reality a moderate protectionist who abolished many of the duties on raw material, but who took care, whilst reducing the absurdly high duties on foreign manufactures, still to give some measure of protection to British manufactures by duties ranging from 30 to 15 per cent. At the same time he developed the prosperity of the colonies by encouraging emigration, by relaxing the Corn Laws in the case of colonial corn, and, above all, by allowing foreign countries to trade directly with them. Meantime Peel revised the Criminal Code and mitigated its severity. At the beginning of the nineteenth century it was a capital offence, for which a man might be hanged, to rob a shopkeeper of goods to the value of 5s. or over, or to pick a man's pockets, or to steal a sheep, or to poach a rabbit warren. It was largely due to Peel that the number of capital offences, which used to be no less than a hundred and sixty in number, has been gradually reduced till those of murder and treason are alone left. At the same time the fact that men were growing more humane is shown in the first attempts to prevent cruelty to dumb animals, and in the prohibition of spring-guns and man-traps, which had been not infrequently used in pasf times by game-preserving landlords (The Game Laws used to be very severe. As late as 1816 an Act was passed punishing with transportation for seven years any person found by night in open ground having in his possession any net or engine for the purpose of taking any hare, rabbit, or other game). |
Chronology |
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