FOR sixteen years Pitt ruled England almost without let We have now to see what use he made or hindrance. of his long lease of ministerial power. Though his accession was the sign of a great change, it did not indicate a revolution. The country had thrown over the Whigs and taken into favour the Tories; but it had made no violent swerve towards either absolutism or democracy. In Pitt's Cabinet all the members were peers, except himself, and he was the son and brother of an Earl.* Mr. Goldwin Smith justly points out that as he had come into power by the King's personal favour, he could do nothing against the King or his order. On the other hand, he so far disappointed the royal expectations that he never became the King's tool. He would not condescend to play the part which Lord North had played, and Bute before Lord North. If his rise marked the discomfiture of the so-called Whig oligarchy, it marked also the beginning of the end of George the 3rd's disastrous assumption of the character of the Patriot King. No doubt the rôle which Pitt had designed for himself was that of a loftier and purer Walpole, and the great objects at which he aimed were the reform of the national finance and the promotion of national prosperity. ** The highly aristocratic composition of Pitt's Cabinet is a proof that there had been no revolution; it has also been justly cited as one of the many confutations of the theory that the Tories are less oligarchical than the Whigs."-GOLDWIN SMITH, Three English Statesmen,' p. 172. 462 PITT'S INDIAN BILL. It was one well-suited to an intellect which was eminently practical, and during the earlier years of his Administration he carried it out with much success. But when the storm of the Revolution raged over Europe he was unfitted to cope with it, and it found him unprepared, by a profound study of the philosophy of history, or even by a clear appreciation of the wants and tendencies of the time, to deal with it manfully. He gave way to panic, and his fears hurried him into a path the goal of which he did not foresee. In the first session of the new Parliament Pitt introduced his Indian Bill, establishing a Ministerial Board of Control for the affairs of India, and creating that system of "double government," which, with some modifications, endured until 1858. It was on the face of it an imperfect measure, and, in statesmanlike grasp and foresight, far inferior to Fox's; but it was swept through the Commons by the flood-tide of a great majority, Fox rallying in opposition to it only a small body of sixty members. In the Lords no division was attempted. The Minister's financial legislation was equally successful and more praiseworthy.* The American War had It was about this time that the authors of Criticisms on the Rolliad,' -Lord George Townshend, Dr. Lawrence, Tickell, George Ellis, and General Fitzpatrick, began the issue of their clever jeu d'esprit. It appeared in the Morning Herald' during the last six months of 1784, and the first six months of 1785; and purported to be an analysis, with illustrative quotations, of an epic poem, the hero of which is John (afterwards Lord) Rolle, then member for Devonshire. Of the nature of its personalities, the following attack upon Pitt may be taken as a specimen : "Pert without fire, without experience sage, Young with more art than Shelburne glean'd from age, HIS FINANCIAL REFORMS. 463 burdened the country with a floating debt of fourteen millions; and at so low an ebb was the national credit, that Consols had sunk to 56. The heavy customs duties offered a premium to smuggling, which was conducted on a truly colossal scale. Pitt proceeded to raise income to a level with expenditure by an increase of taxation; and this taxation he distributed fairly over all classes. In after sessions he worked out with much boldness a plan of financial reform which was not unworthy of the pupil of Adam Smith. By a considerable reduction of the tea duties he checked smuggling, while he increased consumption. He was able also to abolish numerous places in the Excise and the Customs, and, by limiting patronage, to stem the progress of corruption. In his desire to reduce the debt, he was led to favour the project of a sinking fund,* originated as early as 1786, and to some extent adopted by Sir Robert Walpole. Too proud from pilfer'd greatness to descend, This new Octavius rises to debate! Mild and more mild he sees each placid row Nor Rum Contractors think his speech too long, Other you tax the luxury of coals, vote some necessary millions more, To feed our Indian friends' exhausted store, * Pitt acted on a proposal put forward by a Dr. Price. 464 HIS COMMERCIAL TREATIES. The surplus of income over expenditure in 1781 amounted to one million; and it seemed to Pitt that it might form the nucleus of a Sinking Fund, which, in a certain number of years, would, by the mere process of compound interest, wipe out the whole debt of £250,000,000. Modern financiers are fully aware of the chimerical nature of this idea; they know that a surplus can be made available in the reduction of funded debt only by its being applied to "the extinction of an equivalent amount of stock." But this amount of credit may fairly be allowed to Pitt, that by his sinking-fund project he encouraged a disposition on the part of the country to retrench expenditure and reduce the national burdens. Not less to his honour was the stimulus he gave to a policy of peace by his commercial measures. He anticipated Cobden in carrying out a commercial treaty with France; and one cannot but regret that he was encountered on such a point by the opposition of Fox. It was the Whig leader rather than the Tory minister who should have denounced the pernicious error that France was naturally and unchangeably England's "sweet enemy.' It was Fox rather than Pitt, except indeed that Pitt had been bred in the Whig school, who should have combatted the delusion that between nations a chronic condition of hostility must necessarily prevail. "I shall not hesitate," said Pitt, "to contend against the toofrequently expressed opinion that France is and must be the unalterable enemy of England. My mind revolts. from this position as monstrous and impossible. To suppose that any nation can be unalterably the enemy of another is weak and childish." These words, and the THE IRONY OF FATE. 465 sentiment they embody, are in agreeable contrast to the Whig leader's. "Undoubtedly," said Fox, "I will not go the length of asserting that France is and must remain the unalterable enemy of England, and that she might not secretly feel a wish to act amicably with respect to this kingdom. It is possible, but it is scarcely probable. That she, however, feels in that manner at present I not only doubt, but disbelieve. France is the natural political enemy of Great Britain." It may be assumed, however, that Fox's hostility was directed against the rulers rather than the ruled,-against the House of Bourbon rather than France itself. He found a supporter in Edmund Burke; but both of these great men must surely have felt that political exigencies had impelled them upon a course unworthy of their geniu and of their generous sympathies. It is a striking illustration of the irony that seems to govern human affairs that, within a few years, Pitt was destined to become the chief of the war party against France, and Fox to appear as her advocate and friend. We must here go back a couple of years to point out that, in their treatment of the affairs of Ireland, the Opposition pursued an equally mischievous and undignified course. The condition of Ireland, like the condition of India, was one of the problems which demanded solution by whatever government might take charge of the vessel of the State; and it was one of the most difficult. The revolt of the American colonists had not been without influence on the Anglo-Irish colonists; and every English statesman was called upon to read what was approaching in Ireland in "the black and bloody VOL. I. 30 |