THREE:On the 6th of May, 1836, the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward the Budget, which placed in a strong light the long standing anomaly of distress among the agricultural classes, contrasting with general prosperity in the commercial classes. He was enabled to exhibit a more favourable state of the finances than he had anticipated in his estimate the previous year. The total income of the nation was 46,980,000, its total expenditure 45,205,807, which would give a surplus of 1,774,193. Of this surplus all but 662,000 would be absorbed by the interest on the West Indian Loan, which had now become a permanent charge. There was an addition of 5,000 seamen to the navy, for which the sum of 434,000 was required. This addition seemed to be quite necessary from the feeble condition of the navy as compared with the navies of other nations. On the 4th of March Mr. Charles Wood had stated that the French would have twelve sail of the line at sea during summer; that in 1834 the Russians had five sail of the line cruising in the Black Sea, and eighteen besides frigates in the Baltic. During this period there never were in the English Channel ports more than two frigates and a sloop, with crews perhaps amounting to 1,000 men, disposable for sea at any one time, and that only for a day or two. Moreover all the line-of-battle ships Great Britain had afloat in every part of the world did not exceed ten. The land forces voted for the year were 81,319 men, not counting the Indian army. Of these one-half were required in the colonies. France had 360,000 regular soldiers, and three times that number of National Guards. With the surplus at his disposal the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to reduce the duty on first-class paper from fivepence to threepence-halfpennya suitable accompaniment to the reduction of the stamp on newspapers, already noticedand to abolish the duty on stained paper; to remit the South Sea duties, amounting to 10,000; to reduce the duties on insurances of farming-stock, on taxed carts, and on newspapers. He estimated the total amount of repeals for the present year at 351,000, which would be increased to 520,000 when they all came into operation. This was the best of Mr. Spring-Rice's indifferent Budgets.In the House of Lords the second reading was carried on the 28th of May by a majority of 47, and the Bill was finally passed on the 25th of June. The attitude of the House was due entirely to the Duke of Wellington, and his conduct constitutes his best claim to the title of statesman. But the downfall of the Peel Ministry was inevitable. In a letter to the Duke, of the 18th of February, Lord Stanley had said that, whatever might be the result of the Corn Bill, the days of the existing Government were numbered, and that the confidence of his party in Sir Robert Peel had been so shaken, "that, in spite of his pre-eminent abilities and great services, he could never reunite it under his guidance." The Protectionist party found its opportunity in the Irish Coercion Bill, which, introduced by Earl St. Germans into the House of Lords, had slowly passed through its various stages, and appeared in the Commons in March. At first the Bill was obstructed in order to delay the Corn Bill, but when that measure became law, Whigs and Protectionistswho had voted for the second reading of the Protection of Life Billresolved to use it as an instrument for the overthrow of Peel. They combined, therefore, with the Radicals and Irish members, and, on the very night on which Free Trade was passed by the Lords, the Minister was finally defeated in the Commons. He might have dissolved, but his preference was for retirement. The concluding words of his speech will long be remembered. He said: "With reference to honourable gentlemen opposite, I must say, as I say with reference to ourselves, neither of us is the party which is justly entitled to the credit of those measures. There has been a combination of parties, and that combination, and the influence of Government, have led to their ultimate success; but the name which ought to be, and will be, associated with the success of those measures, is the name of the man who, acting, I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, has, with untiring energy, by appeals to reason, enforced their necessity with an eloquence the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadornedthe name which ought to be associated with the success of those measures is the name of Richard Cobden. Sir, I now close the address which it has been my duty to make to the House, thanking them sincerely for the favour with which they have listened to me in performing the last act of my official career. Within a few hours, probably, that favour which I have held for the period of five years will be surrendered into the hands of anotherwithout repiningI can say without complaintwith a more lively recollection of the support and confidence I have received than of the opposition which, during a recent period, I have met with. I shall leave office with a name severely censured, I fear, by many who, on public grounds, deeply regret the severance of party tiesdeeply regret that severance, not from interest or personal motives, but from the firm conviction that fidelity to party engagementsthe existence and maintenance of a great partyconstitutes a powerful instrument of government. I shall surrender power severely censured also by others who, from no interested[524] motives, adhere to the principle of Protection, considering the maintenance of it to be essential to the welfare and interests of the country. I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist who, from less honourable motives, clamours for Protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit; but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good-will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by the sense of injustice."
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