United States or Cameroon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He allowed the truth of what I said, and seemed to blame Peel's want of courage. In his place, he said, he would have proposed to form a government disclaiming any personal views for himself as being Premier and the like, but upon the principle of supporting the measures of Lord Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool. I think this would have been acceptable to the King. Mr.
Nevertheless, I think that Sir Robert Peel's dictum with respect to the Repeal of the Corn Laws, on the day on which he retired last from office, when he observed that thenceforward, even when the poor suffered from the high price of bread, they would not ascribe that suffering to the fact of their bread being taxed, applies with at least equal force to the reciprocity question as affecting the Canadian farmers.
Out of this event grew another, which finally and successfully brought to an issue the century-old Catholic question. The Catholic Association, on the accession of the Wellington-Peel Cabinet, had publicly pledged itself to oppose every man who would accept office under these statesmen. The memory of both as ex-secretaries but especially Peel's was odious in Ireland.
Peel's smile was "the silver plate on a coffin", Wellington "a stunted corporal", and Disraeli "the lineal descendant of the impenitent thief." It sounds bombastic, but in those feudal forties it rang more magnificent than war. Single-voiced he overawed the host of bigots, dullards, and reactionaries.
The last resolution, while it recognised the wisdom of restoring cash-payments as soon as it could safely be done, affirmed it to be "highly inexpedient and dangerous to fix a definite period for the removal of the restriction on cash-payments prior to the conclusion of a definitive treaty of peace". These counsels prevailed, and the restriction was not actually removed until Peel's act was passed in July, 1819.
Peel's attitude is well described in the admirable life of George Canning published by Mr. Frank Harrison Hill in 1887. "Peel," says Mr. Hill, "did not believe in governing against Parliamentary and public opinion." "To him the art of government was the measurement of social forces, and the adaptation of policy to their direction and intensity.
I might with consistency, and some may think that I ought to have declined to belong to Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet on the night of the 20th of December. But my opinion is, that if I had, Sir Robert Peel's Government would not have been framed; that we should have had and in office next morning.
Turning his head halfway up Oldcastle Street, opposite the mansion which is called 'Miss Peel's', he perceived Robert fifty yards behind. It was a glorious June day. He blushed as he entered chapel. If he was nervous, it may be accorded to him as excuse that the happiness of his life depended on what he should see within the next few minutes.
The old school which made a man responsible for his words was the better. Moore related how O'Connell had accepted Peel's challenge, and then delayed a meeting on the ground of his wife's illness, till the law interfered. Another Irish patriot refused a meeting on account of the illness of his daughter, whereupon a Dublin wit composed the following epigram upon the two:
Peel's judicial and scientific mind usually controlled those of his subordinates; but even Peel found it hard to check the brilliant individualism of his colonial secretary; and this most interesting of all the great failures in English politics exercised an influence in Canadian affairs, such as not even Lord John Russell attempted.
Word Of The Day