XXIII. 1832. a-year, and that it soon became not less, on an average CHAP. of years, than 300,000, it is evident that a vast heave of the human race has taken place, and that few causes are so important upon the destinies of mankind as those which have brought about this marvellous change. It has doubled the already fabulous rate of Transatlantic increase a million of souls, between natural increase and immigration, are now annually added to the inhabitants of America; and it has caused a new world to spring up in Australia, which already numbers above half a million of souls among its members, and in 1853 consumed £14,000,000 worth of British manufactures, being four times as much as the empires of France and Russia put together, with their hundred millions of inhabitants.t 122. is chiefly by the Re It must be obvious to every impartial observer that this prodigious change, with all its incalculable effects upon The vast the world in general, and this country in particular, is emigration mainly to be ascribed to the alteration in the dominant owing to the changes class in the British Islands by the effects of the Reform produced Bill. The immense emigration, which constitutes so re- form Bill. markable a feature in these times, and in 1853 reached such a point as for several years considerably to overbalance the annual increase of our population, can be distinctly traced to this cause. Out of the 368,000 persons -CHESNEY'S Results of the Census, 1854, p. 56; and Parl. Papers, May 16, 1854. + EXPORTS (DECLARED VALUE) OF GREAT BRITAIN TO AUSTRALIA, XXIII. CHAP. who emigrated in the year 1852, only 87,000 were bound for Australia; 225,000 went to America. They were 1832. impelled, not by the attraction of foreign riches, but by the necessities of home situations-they went not to the land of gold, but to the land of labour. Two hundred and fifty thousand of this immense multitude came from Ireland, and we are not in the dark as to the cause which sent them forth.* The famine of 1846, indeed, shook their confidence in the potato, the staple food of the country; but it was not then, or from that cause, that the great emigration commenced. It was in 1849, after two fine harvests for the first of which a thanksgiving was returned that it became so great, and in 1851 that it reached its highest point, when wheat was at 38s. 6d. the quarter. The reason was, that the fall of prices, produced by the combined influence of a contracted and fettered currency and free trade in grain, had rendered it impossible to cultivate the land with cereal crops to a profit. The exportation of wheat to England had fallen off by 1,500,000 quarters; and Ireland, the great agricultural state, found its occupation gone, and its children sought employment in Transatlantic wilds. There can be no doubt that this emigration was, in the first instance at least, a very great advantage, though, if it continues, it may come to impair the strength and drain away the resources of the state. But be it for good or for evil, one In 1852, the remittances from America to bring out emigrants from Ireland were £1,404,000; in 1853, £1,439,000, through public channels alone, besides what was remitted through private channels.-14th Report of Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners, pp. 56, 71. +The fluctuations in the extent of land devoted to the cultivation of potatoes and wheat is shown in the following Table : thing is perfectly clear, that this important change is mainly to be ascribed to the Reform Bill; and that it is the magnitude of the effects with which it has thus come to be attended which renders its passing so vital an era in English history. CHAP. 1832. 123. the old Con To understand how this came about, and perceive how Principle of these immense consequences are distinctly to be traced to stitution. the revolution effected in the English constitution by that great change, we have only to recollect that the old constitution which had grown up, like a code of consuetudinary law, with the wants and requirements of six centuries, was based upon the representation of classes, not numbers, and had come in the progress of time to admit all the great interests of the state to a share, and nearly an equal share, of the Legislature. The House of Peers repre -Abstracts of Irish Agricultural Statistics for these years. On this subject the Times very justly remarks: "We cannot regard with any pleasure or pride the conversion of Ireland into one vast pasturage, but we cannot be blind to the tendency which is now that way. Such a tendency cannot be stayed if we wished it ever so much; but it is fatal to a system of small farms. It is not a landlord's movement, for sheepwalks will never make the rents which in times past have been raised from the fierce competition of a half-starved peasantry, but one of those great movements brought about by force of circumstances, and wholly beyond the control of governments, of classes, or any bodies of men. We cannot even regulate it; we must only watch it, accommodate ourselves to it, and mitigate, in some small degree, its incidental ill consequences.”—Times, 3d November 1863. XXIII. 1832. CHAP. sented, or rather was composed entirely of, the landed aristocracy, spiritual and temporal. The county members were returned by the inferior landholders, tenantry, and freeholders; the universities had their members; the boroughs afforded an ample field to the various commercial and manufacturing interests; and though the colonies were not directly represented, yet the great amount of wealth which their prosperity remitted to the mother country had enabled persons who had made their fortunes there, and whose interests and feelings were identified with those of their inhabitants, to obtain seats in the House of Commons for the rotten boroughs in great numbers. Thus the House of Commons had come to be an assembly, not of the representatives of any one class or section of society, but of all sections and classes; and though the influence of wealth, landed or commercial, was mainly influential in procuring the returns, yet those of talent and labour were by no means disregarded. Talent found an easy entrance through the nomination boroughs, the magnates being ever on the watch for ability to support their side in Parliament; and the potwallopers in many large boroughs returned members of their own choice, whose influence, from the noisy character of themselves and their constituents, was much greater than would at first sight have been supposed from their limited number. That this was the true character of the House of Commons, and the secret of its long-continued influence and the acts of popularity, is decisively proved by its legislative acts. the House Every interest in society was protected by the laws or fiscal regulations which it passed, and none in such a degree as to beget the suspicion that any one had acquired a disproportioned sway in the Legislature. It was often said at this time that the landed interest was the preponderating one in the Chapel of St Stephen's; and certainly, if we consider only the heavy fiscal duties which protected its produce, we should be inclined to suppose that the opinion was well founded. But a closer examination will 124. Which is proved by of Com mons. XXIII. 1832. show that the Corn Laws were only a branch, though CHAP. doubtless a most important branch, of the general system of protection established through the country, and for every branch of industry. The West Indies were equally guarded. The heavy duties on foreign sugar, and the rapid growth of those then magnificent settlements, prove that they shared to the very full in the general protective policy which prevailed. Canada was as effectually secured by the duties which were so heavy a burden on Baltic timber. The manufacturing interest shared to the very full in the benefits of the same system. There was not a branch of British industry which was not fenced in by heavy protective duties. The shipping interest was protected by the Navigation Laws; and though the direct representation of labour was inconsiderable in the Legislature, yet experience had proved that its claims were not forgotten, for a noble fund of above six millions a-year was voluntarily imposed on themselves by the landed interest for the relief of the poor, and had been maintained inviolate during a desperate contest of twenty years' duration, which had added six hundred millions to the national debt. 125. tribution of What was equally significant of the effective representation of all classes of society under the old constitution, Equal diswas the equitable manner in which the public burdens the public were distributed over the various classes of society. Uni- burdens. versally it will be found that the first result of class government, whether of an oligarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, is to establish an exemption from direct taxation in favour of the dominant class. The exemption, so much and justly the subject of complaint, in favour of the Notables in France prior to the Revolution, was but an example of what all other notables, aristocratic or democratic, will do when they get the power. But in Great Britain, anterior to 1832, the burden of taxation was so equally diffused that no one could discover from that test in whose hands the government of the state was really |