184

REDUCTION OF THE INTEREST OF THE NATIONAL DEBT. [1749.

The Parliament which commenced its sittings in November 1747 was continued through its full septennial period until April, 1754. This tenth. Parliament of Great Britain holds an honourable place in history for two measures of permanent utility-the Reform of the Calendar, and the Marriage Act. Other portions of its legislation are interesting, as bearing upon some questions which are still not wholly settled; or as illustrating the state of public morality. During the remaining years of the Pelham administration we may follow the course of parliamentary proceedings as the best outline of the progress of the nation.

Mr. Pelham, though a timid war-minister, was sufficiently bold as a financier. At the opening of the Session, the king recommended to the Commons "to be watchful to improve any opportunity of putting the national debt in a method of being reduced, with a strict regard to public faith and private property." In a fortnight the proposal of the minister was entertained, to reduce the 4 per cent. annuities to a lower rate of interest. The whole unredeemed capital of the funded debt amounted, in round numbers, to seventy-one millions, of which forty-three millions were due to the Bank of England, the South Sea Company, and the East India Company, at varying rates of interest,-namely: 4 per cent., 3 per cent., 3 per cent. Of the other public debt, nearly nineteen milliors were in 4 per cent. annuities, and eight millions in 3 per cent. consolidated annuities. Mr. Pelham proposed that all persons or bodies corporate entitled to any part of the redeemable national debt, which carried interest at 4 per cent., who should consent to receive interest at 3 per cent., commencing on the 25th December, 1757, should receive 3 per cent. in the intermediate years. The scheme, according to Tindal, was regarded as a very bold and even dangerous measure by many friends of the minister. Smollett says that foreign nations looked on with wonder, to see such a proposition carried without disturbance, and asked where money could be found to pay off the dissentient fund-holders. But there were very few who chose to be paid off. The confidence in the government, and the convenience to many persons of these public investments with their certain dividends, enabled the minister to accomplish his plan without the disquiet which some had dreaded. The public benefit of the reduction of interest was sensibly felt when, after the death of Mr. Pelham, the nation became engaged in the Seven Years War. After languishing for a year or two, this contest was conducted to a successful close, with a lavish expense wholly unprecedented on the part of England. In 1749, when the funded debt was seventy-one millions, the interest was very nearly three millions. In 1759, when the funded debt was eighty-nine millions, the interest was still under three millions.*

In the middle of the eighteenth century, such a change had taken place in the relations between employers and workmen, that the old system of regimenting labour, by prescribing the rate of wages and the hours of work, was coming quickly to an end. Four hundred years before that time the labourquestion, as it is called, was putting strife between masters and servants. The labourers of the reign of Edward III., in consequence of a pestilence which had reduced the amount of labour seeking employment, demanded a

* See Parliamentary Return of the National Debt, &c. Ordered to be printed 19th July, 1858.

1749.1

COMBINATION LAWS.

185

rise in wages-as they justly might, according to the natural law which regulates wages. They founded their demand upon sound principles, although these were not reduced into a science. But it was held that the labourers of the time of Edward III. demanded what the employers considered excessive wages; and the legislature stepped in to compel a rate of hire, and to confine labourers to one locality. This was the stronger tyranny; and the precedent was ever at hand, in future contests.* Statutes for the regulation of wages and the hours of labour went on multiplying, even against the growing conviction that they were inefficient. There was a constant and gradual tendency in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the prices of commodities to advance; and this inevitable result of the discovery of the precious metals in America baffled every attempt to fix a stationary scale of wages. A statute of 1548 endeavours to grapple with what it held to be two flagrant evils. Sellers of victuals were to be punished for conspiring and covenanting to sell their commodities at unreasonable prices. This was to be a boon to those who laboured for subsistence. But, on the other hand, combinations of workmen were prohibited by this statute, under severe penalties. It would appear from this enactment that workmen, under a system of promises and mutual oaths, then engaged in a confederacy against the liberty of other workmen ; and to this extent the legislators were right, even in enacting their harsh penalties of imprisonment and pillory. We here see the commencement of statutory regulations against combinations of workmen; which, however, were always punishable at common law, as well as combinations of masters. We go on to the eighteenth century, and we then find special laws against combinations in particular trades. A statute of the 7th George I, is "for regulating journeymen tailors," especially those of London and Westminster, "who have lately departed from their services without just cause, and have entered into combinations to advance their wages to unreasonable prices, and lessen their usual hours of work." A statute of the 12th George I. extends the penalties against combinations to "workmen employed in the woollen manufacture." The next step is the Act of 1749, which especially extends the provisions of the two previous statutes to those employed in hat-making, and to the workers in all textile substances, and in leather; and, moreover, provides the usual supposed remedies of legal punishments against all combinations of workmen whatever. It required the experience of three quarters of a century to show that such legislation was essentially a mistake. The statutes against combinations had been so multiplied that when these laws were repealed in 1824, they amounted to thirty-five different enactments. It was inconsistent with the principle of justice to all classes that they should continue on the statute-book in their original arbitrary and unequal provisions. Adam Smith, in 1776, proclaimed this inequality: "We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it." The injustice has been remedied, and workmen are free to combine not to work under certain wages, and to regulate the hours of work; always provided that they do not by violence, threats, or otherwise, interfere with the freedom of action in other workmen. We shall have to note hereafter the repeal of the Combination Laws, and the effects of that repeal.

* See ante, vol. i. p. 471.

"Wealth of Nations," book i. c. 8.

186

QUESTION OF PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE.

[1751.

This change and its consequences form an important consideration in the history of our social state, and in any estimate of its possible future. The change could not be avoided. But the rude contest of four centuries ago still subsists under different forms scarcely less rude. Legislation is not competent to deal with the evil. Its remedy can only be found in a better appreciation by employers and workmen of their mutual rights and duties. The preparation for a happier system than that which results in the ruin and misery of strikes, is to be sought in the real and solid instruction of all classes in the great natural laws by which the relations of capital and labour must inevitably be adjusted, whatever be the disturbing forces which interfere with an adjustment. The gross ignorance of these laws exhibited by the legislators of Trades Unions, in the middle of the nineteenth century, is even more deplorable than that of the law-givers of the nation in the fifteenth century. Untaught workmen of the time of Edward III. had the laws of political economy with them, when they demanded an increase of wages in consequence of the decrease in the number of labourers. Half-educated artisans of the days of queen Victoria demand an increase of wages because the number of labourers has increased. On the other hand, we are not to conclude, that the ignorance, grosser than that of the dark ages, which says, "if political economy is against us we are against political economy," and the tyranny against fellow-workmen by which that ignorance is upheld, that these are to be met by the capitalist, in a partial triumph over combinations, requiring conditions which appear to interfere with the free action of the individual labourer. Let us have no class despotism, on one side or the other; no arbitrary regulations, if not quite as odious, certainly as ineffectual, as the partial and unjust distinction of the days of the first and second Georges between the rights of capital and the rights of labour.

The question, so often raised, and on which different opinions are still continued to be held,-the question of parliamentary privilege, agitated the nation in 1750 and in 1751. On the 22d of November, 1749, an election was held for Westminster, in which the ministerial candidate, lord Trentham, was opposed by sir George Vandeput, supported by a strong body of persons calling themselves the Independent Electors. A scrutiny was demanded, upon lord Trentham being returned. On the 22nd of February, 1750, no return having been made to the writ, the high bailiff was called to the bar of the House of Commons; but he was dismissed, upon his assurance being given that he would use his endeavours to expedite the election. Parliament was prorogued before the return was made, which return was in favour of lord Trentham. Soon after the opening of the Session in 1751, a petition was presented from the inhabitants of Westminster complaining of an undue return, arising out of the partiality of the high bailiff. This officer accused three gentlemen, Mr. Crowle, the Hon. Alexander Murray, and Mr. Gibson, of having illegally interfered to obstruct the proceedings on the scrutiny, and to influence him in the return. Crowle was reprimanded and discharged. Gibson was sent to Newgate. When Murray was brought to the bar, to receive his sentence of a close committal to Newgate, he refused to kneel, as commanded by the Speaker. Horace Walpole has related the scene which took place: "He entered with an air of confidence, composed of something between a martyr and a coxcomb. The Speaker called out, Your obeisances!

1751.]

REFORM OF THE CALENDAR.

187

sir, your obeisances!'-and then-Sir, you must kneel.' He replied, 'Sir, I beg to be excused; I never kneel but to God.' The Speaker repeated the command with great warmth. Murray answered, 'Sir, I am sorry I cannot comply with your request, I would in anything else.' The Speaker cried, Sir, I call upon you again to consider of it.' Murray answered, 'Sir, when I have committed a crime, I kneel to God for pardon; but I know my own innocence, and cannot kneel to anybody else.' The Speaker ordered the serjeant to take him away, and secure him."* In April Murray was brought by Habeas Corpus into the King's Bench, where his case was argued. But the validity of his commitment being affirmed by three judges, he was remanded to Newgate. Upon the prorogation of Parliament he was conducted in triumph to his own house, attended by the sheriffs of London. In the next Session of Parliament, a motion was made that Murray should be apprehended, and again committed to Newgate for contempt of privilege. It was fortunate for the honour of Parliament that, upon the motion being carried, Murray absconded. A reward of five hundred pounds was offered for his apprehension, but without effect. A prosecution against the publisher of a pamphlet on this subject was ordered by the House. A London jury acquitted the defendant. The public sympathy with Murray was a manifestation of the growing temper with which the proceedings of their representatives had come to be regarded by the people; - -a temper which in a few years was to convulse the nation almost to the verge of anarchy.

The Reform of the Calendar, in 1751, is a measure of which no one can be more sensible of the advantage than he who has to write the annals of his country. The change which pope Gregory XIII. had introduced in 1582 had gradually been adopted by all European states except England, Russia, and Sweden. Thus, in reading a French historian, we not only find an event bearing date ten or eleven days in advance of the date of an English narrative, but the year is made to begin from the 1st of January in the foreign annalist instead of the 25th of March, as in the English. To prevent mistakes arising out of this confusion requires perpetual vigilance in the historical writer. To attempt to reconcile these discrepancies in all cases would be needless; and most annalists are generally content to take the dates as they find them. The energy of lord Chesterfield-a man of great and various ability, who had filled high offices, but in 1751 had retired from ministerial business-carried this reform through, with the learned aid of lord Macclesfield, who was afterwards president of the Royal Society. The commencement of the year on the 1st of January was not calculated to disturb any popular prejudice; for the 25th of February, 1751, on which day the bill was introduced into the House of Lords, was ordinarily written, 25th February, 1750-51. But the necessity for another change was thus indicated by lord Macclesfield; "The same day which, in each month, is with us the first, is called the twelfth day of the month throughout almost all the other parts of Europe; and in like manner through all the other days of the month, we are just eleven days behind them." To make the legal year correspond in all future time with the solar year, was the result of scientific calculations, the rationale of which is now generally understood. It was necessary also to make a change in the Calendar

"Memoirs of the Reign of George II.," vol. i. p. 29.

188

DEATH OF FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.

[1751. as to the time of finding Easter. There were many minor regulations essential to be provided for in consequence of the great change. The payments of rents, annuities, and salaries for public service were not to be accele rated; and thus the 5th of July, the 10th of October, the 5th of January, and the 5th of April, long held their place as rent days; and the dividends upon stock are still paid at those periods. It may be supposed that such a reform, however valuable, would not be made without some popular discontent. The timid Newcastle told Chesterfield that he hated new-fangled thingsthat he had better not meddle with matters so long established. The witty earl was wiser. He made a speech of which he has given a most ingenuous account in a letter to his son: "I consulted the ablest lawyers and the most skilful astronomers, and we cooked up a Bill for that purpose. But then my difficulty began. I was to bring in this Bill, which was necessarily composed of law-jargon and astronomical calculations, to both which I am an utter stranger. However, it was absolutely necessary to make the House of Lords think that I knew something of the matter; and also make them believe that they knew something of it themselves, which they do not. For my own part, I could just, as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonian to them, as astronomy, and they would have understood me full as well; so I resolved to do better than speak to the purpose, and to please instead of informing them." The peers were amused by Chesterfield; the thinking part of the nation were convinced by Macclesfield, who published his speech. Hogarth has immortalized the vulgar opposition to the reform of the Calendar in his picture of An Election Feast, in which the popular prejudices are flattered by the Whig candidate in his banner inscribed with "Give us our eleven days."

In 1751 an event occurred which, for some time, disturbed all the calculations of the scheming politicians of this intriguing age. Frederick, prince of Wales, died after a short illness on the 20th of March. Leicester House, his town abode, had long been the central point of opposition to the government. We have seen how far the unhappy estrangement of the prince from his parents was carried before the death of queen Caroline. Years had passed over, and yet the animosities between the reigning king and the heir-apparent were never subdued. In 1751 George II., although a hale man, was in his sixty-eighth year. The worshippers of the rising sun grew bolder in their devotion. Bubb Doddington, the treasurer of the navy, resigned his office in March, 1749, having received a message from the prince that the principal direction of his royal highness's affairs should be put in the skilful intriguer's hands. He saw the prince at Kew, and was told that "what he could not do for me in his present situation must be made up to me in futurity." The prince farther said "that he thought a peerage, with the management of the House of Lords, and the seals of secretary of state for the southern provinces, would be a proper station for me, if I approved of

George Bubb Doddington.