Already the ministry on which such great hopes had been
placed had broken up. Rockingham died in July 1782. The
two sections of which the government was composed had different
aims. The Rockingham section, which now looked up to Fox,
rested on aristocratic connexion and influence; the Shelburne
section was anxious to gain popular support by active reforms,
and to gain over the king to their side. Judging by past experience,
the combination might well seem hopeless, and honourable
men like Fox might easily regard it with suspicion. But
Fox’s allies took good care that their name should not be associated
with the idea of improvement. They pruned Burke’s
Economical Reform Bill till it left as many abuses as it suppressed;
and though the bill prohibited the grant of pensions
above £300, they hastily gave away pensions of much larger
value to their own friends before the bill had received the royal
assent. They also opposed a bill for parliamentary reform
brought in by young William Pitt. When the king chose
Shelburne as prime minister, they refused to follow him, and
put forward the incompetent duke of Portland as their candidate
for the office. The struggle was thus renewed on the old ground
of the king’s right to select his ministers. But while the king
now put forward a minister notoriously able and competent to the
task, his opponents put forward a man whose only claim to office
was the possession of large estates. They forced their way back
to power by means as unscrupulous as their claim to it was unjustifiable.
They formed a coalition with Lord North, whose
The coalition.
politics and character they had denounced for years.
The coalition, as soon as the peace with America and
France had been signed (1783), drove Shelburne from
office. The duke of Portland became the nominal head of the
government, Fox and North its real leaders.
Such a ministry could not afford to make a single blunder. The king detested it, and the assumption by the Whig houses of a right to nominate the head of the government without reference to the national interests, could never be popular. The blunder was soon committed. The India Bill. Burke, hating wrong and injustice with a bitter hatred, had descried in the government of British India by the East India Company a disgrace to the English name. For many of the actions of that government no honourable man can think of uttering a word of defence. The helpless natives were oppressed and robbed by the company and its servants in every possible way. Burke drew up a bill, which was adopted by the coalition government, for taking all authority in India out of the hands of the company, and even placing the company’s management of its own commercial affairs under control. The governing and controlling body was naturally to be a council appointed at home. The question of the nomination of this council at once drew the whole question within the domain of party politics. The whole patronage of India would be in its hands, and, as parliament was then constituted, the balance of parties might be more seriously affected by the distribution of that patronage than it would be now. When, therefore, it was understood that the government bill meant the council to be named in the bill for four years, or, in other words, to be named by the coalition ministry, it was generally regarded as an unblushing attempt to turn a measure for the good government of India into a measure for securing the ministry in office. The bill of course passed the Commons. When it came before the Lords, it was thrown out in consequence of a message from the king, that he would regard any one who voted for it as his enemy.
The contest had thus become one between the influence of the crown and the influence of the great houses. Constitutional historians, who treat the question as one of merely theoretical politics, leave out of consideration this essential element of the situation, and forget that, if Ministry of the younger Pitt. it was wrong for the king to influence the Lords by his message, it was equally wrong for the ministry to acquire for themselves fresh patronage with which to influence the Commons. But there was now, what there had not been in the time of Walpole and the Pelhams, a public opinion ready to throw its weight on one side or the other. The county members still formed the most independent portion of the representation, and there were many possessors of rotten boroughs, who were ready to agree with the county members rather than with the great landowners. In choosing Pitt, the young son of Chatham, for his prime minister, as soon as he had dismissed the coalition, George III. gave assurance that he wished his counsels to be directed by integrity and ability. After a struggle of many weeks, parliament was dissolved (1784), and the new House of Commons was prepared to support the king’s minister by a large majority.
As far as names go, the change effected placed the new Tory party in office for an almost uninterrupted period of forty-six years. It so happened, however, that after the first eight years of that period had passed by, circumstances occurred which effected so great a change in the composition and character of that party as to render any statement to this effect entirely illusive. During eight years, however, Pitt’s ministry was not merely a Tory ministry resting on the choice of the king, but a Liberal ministry resting on national support and upon advanced political knowledge.
The nation which Pitt had behind him was very different from the populace which had assailed Walpole’s Excise Bill, or had shouted for Wilkes and liberty. At the beginning of the century the intellect of thoughtful Englishmen had applied itself to speculative problems of religion Material progress. and philosophy. In the middle of the century it applied itself to practical problems affecting the employment of industry. In 1776 Adam Smith published the Wealth of Nations. Already in 1762 the work of Brindley, the Bridgewater canal, the first joint of a network of inland water communication, was opened. In 1767 Hargreaves produced the spinning-jenny; Arkwright’s spinning machine was exhibited in 1768; Crompton’s mule was finished in 1779; Cartwright hit upon the idea of the power-loom in 1784, though it was not brought into profitable use till 1801. The Staffordshire potteries had been flourishing under Wedgwood since 1763, and the improved steam-engine was brought into shape by Watt in 1768. During these years the duke of Bedford, Coke of Norfolk, and Robert Bakewell were busy in the improvement of stock and agriculture.
The increase of wealth and prosperity caused by these changes went far to produce a large class of the population entirely outside the associations of the landowning class, but with sufficient intelligence to appreciate the advantages of a government carried on without regard to the personal interests and rivalries of the aristocracy. The mode in which that increase of wealth was effected was even more decisive on the ultimate destinies of the country. The substitution of the organization of hereditary monarchy for the organization of wealth and station would ultimately have led to evils as great as those which it superseded. It was only tolerable as a stepping-stone to the organization of intelligence. The larger the numbers admitted to influence the affairs of state, the more necessary is it that they respect the powers of intellect. It would be foolish to institute a comparison between an Arkwright or a Crompton and a Locke or a Newton. But it is certain that for one man who could appreciate the importance of the treatise On the Human Understanding or the theory of gravitation, there were thousands who could understand the value of the water-frame, or the power-loom. The habit of looking with reverence upon mental power was fostered in no slight measure by the industrial development of the second half of the 18th century.
The supremacy of intelligence in the political world was,
for the time, represented in Pitt. In 1784 he passed an India
Bill, which left the commerce and all except the highest
patronage of India in the hands of the East India
Company, but which erected a department of the home
Pitt’s
India Bill.
government, named the board of control, to compel the company
to carry out such political measures as the government
saw fit. A bill for parliamentary reform was, however, thrown
out by the opposition of his own supporters in parliament, whilst
outside parliament there was no general desire for a change in
a system which for the present produced such excellent fruits.
