第20章 Reform Movements(8)

The Radicals considered this as a mere delusion,because it was provided at the same time that pensions might be given to persons who had held certain great offices,the change,however,was apparently of importance as removing the chief apology for sinecures,and the system with modifications still remains.The marquis of Camden,one of the tellers of the Exchequer,voluntarily resigned the fees and accepted only the regular salary of £2500.

His action is commended in the Black Book ,33which expresses a regret that the example had not been followed by other great sinecurists.

Public opinion was beginning to be felt.During the subsequent period the cry against sinecures became more emphatic,the Black Book,published originally in 1820and 1823,and afterwards reissued,gave a list,so far as it could be ascertained,of all pensions,and supplied a mass of information for Radical orators.The amount of pensions is stated at over £1,000,000,including sinecure offices with over £350,000annually;34and the list of offices (probably very inaccurate in detail)gives a singular impression of the strange ramifications of the system.Besides the direct pensions,every new department of administration seems to have suggested the foundation of offices which tended to become sinecures.The cry for 'retrenchment'was joined to the cry for reform.35Joseph Hume,who first entered parliament in 1818,became a representative of the Utilitarian Radicalism,and began a long career of minute criticism which won for him the reputation of a stupendous bore,but helped to keep a steady pressure upon ministers.36Sir James Graham (1792-1861)was at this time of Radical tendencies,and first made himself conspicuous by demanding returns of pensions.37The settlements of the civil lists of George IV,William IV,and Victoria,gave opportunities for imposing new restrictions upon the pension system.Although no single sweeping measure was passed,the whole position was changed.By the time of the Reform Bill,a sinecure had become an anachronism.The presumption was that whenever an opportunity offered,it would be suppressed.Some of the sinecure offices in the Court of Chancery,the 'Keeper of the Hanaper,'the 'Chaffwax,'and so forth,were abolished by an act passed by the parliament which had just carried the Reform Bill,38in 1833a reform of the system of naval administration by Sir James Graham got rid of some cumbrous machinery;and Graham again was intrusted in 1834with an act under which the Court of Exchequer was finally reformed,and the 'Clerk of the Pells'and the 'tellers of the Exchequer'ceased to exist.39Other offices seem to have melted away by degrees,whenever a chance offered.

Many other of the old abuses had ceased to require any special denunciations from political theorists.

The general principle was established,and what remained was to apply it in detail.The prison system was no longer in want of a Howard or a Bentham.

Abuses remained which occupied the admirable Mrs.Fry;and many serious difficulties had to be solved by a long course of experiment.But it was no longer a question whether anything should be doing,but of the most efficient means of bringing about an admittedly desirable end.The agitation for the suppression of the slave-trade again had been succeeded by the attack upon slavery.The system was evidently doomed,although not finally abolished till after the Reform Bill;and ministers were only considering the question whether the abolition should be summary or gradual,or what compensation might be made to vested interests.The old agitation had been remarkable,as I have said,not only for its end but for the new kind of machinery to which it had applied.Popular agitation 40had taken a new shape.The county associations formed in the last days of the American war of independence,and the societies due to the French revolution had set a precedent.The revolutionary societies had been suppressed or had died out,as opposed to the general spirit of the nation,although they had done a good deal to arouse political speculation.In the period of distress which followed the war the Radical reformers had again held public meetings,and had again been met by repressive measures.The acts of 1817and 181941imposed severe restrictions upon the right of public meeting.The old 'county meeting,'which continued to be common until the reform period,and was summoned by the lord-lieutenant or the sheriff on a requisition from the freeholders,had a kind of constitutional character,though I do not know its history in detail.42The extravagantly repressive measures were an anachronism,or could only be enforced during the pressure of an intense excitement.In one way or other,public meetings were soon being held as frequently as ever.The trial of Queen Caroline gave opportunity for numerous gatherings,and statesmen began to find that they must use instead of suppressing them.Canning 43appears to have been the first minister to make frequent use of speeches addressed to public meetings;and meetings to which such appeals were addressed soon began to use their authority to demand pledges from the speakers.44Representation was to be understood more and more as delegation.Meanwhile the effect of public meetings was enormously increased when a general organisation was introduced.The great precedent was the Catholic Association,founded in 1823by O'Connell and Sheil.The peculiar circumstances of the Irish people and their priests gave a ready-made machinery for the agitation which triumphed in 1829.The Political Union founded by Attwood at Birmingham in the same year adopted the method,and led to the triumph of 1832.Political combination henceforth took a different shape,and in the ordinary phrase,'public opinion'became definitely the ultimate and supreme authority.