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Indifference of the Country to Reform. Repeal of the Navigation Laws. Resolutions in Favor of Free-trade. The Great Exhibition of 1851. The transactions mentioned in the last chapter were among the last events of Lord Melbourne's ministry.
The turn of the tide with the Whigs The two voices in the Cabinet Lord John and Ireland Althorp and the Poor Law The Melbourne Administration on the rocks Peel in power The question of Irish tithes Marriage of Lord John Grievances of Nonconformists Lord Melbourne's influence over the Queen Lord Durham's mission to Canada Personal sorrow.
The most significant difference between the two cabinets lay in the omission of Brougham, which was effected by the expedient of placing the great seal in commission. This negative act was, in reality, the boldest and most perilous in Melbourne's political life.
It is, however, both an injustice and an affront to confer this dignity on low people, who do not possess a fourth of my property, and whose family is as ignoble as Lord Melbourne's own, and not to have offered the same to me.
Although the motion was lost by 315 to 198 votes, the result was peculiarly galling to Lord John, for amongst the majority were those members who were usually opposed to the Government, whilst the minority was made up of Lord Melbourne's followers.
And, if that had been suspected at the time, the House of Commons would certainly not have consented to it; even when the ministry was supposed to be unanimous in its approval of it, it was only carried by a majority of nine; and, when the bill embodying it came before the House of Lords, a Whig peer, who had himself been formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne's administration, moved its rejection, and it was rejected by a majority of eighty-nine.
Lord Melbourne's cynical remark, to the effect that nobody did anything very foolish except from some strong principle, carries with it a tribute to motive as well as a censure on action, and it is certain that the promptings to which Lord John yielded in the questionable phases of his public career were not due to the adroit and calculating temper of self-interest.
Of these, of course, incomparably the highest is the Order of the Garter, and its most characteristic glory is that, in Lord Melbourne's phrase, "there is no d d nonsense of merit about it." The Emperor of Lilliput rewarded his courtiers with three fine silken threads, one of which was blue, one green, and one red.
They knew very well that, to say the least, it was highly doubtful whether the Queen had acted in strict accordance with the constitution; that in doing what she had done she had brushed aside Lord Melbourne's advice; that, in reality, there was no public reason whatever why they should go back upon their decision to resign.
It had nearly, however, been another ministry on whom the task of quelling these riots had fallen. Though, as has been already said, Lord Melbourne's cabinet derived a momentary strength from the accession of a young Queen, the support it thus acquired did not last; and in May, 1839, having been defeated on a measure of colonial policy, which will be mentioned hereafter, the cabinet resigned.
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