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Chapter VI.

Burrowing Animals.

Third Epoch (1688—1832).

The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 was almost as disastrous an event for the English People as the "Blessed Restoration." It was made by the Anglican bishops and a handful of noble lords, who dreaded that if James the Second page 54 should proceed further in his Romanizing policy they might be called upon to disgorge their estates, which had been carved out of church property. In the whole history of ecclesiastical hypocrisy there is nothing to match the effrontery of the passive-obedience-preaching Churchmen, the cruel persecutions of Dissenters, the bigots and authors of Uniformity Acts, Five Mile Acts, and Non-Resistance Bills, coming forward as the champions of civil and religious liberty. The moment they saw their livings and sees in danger from James's Romans, passive obedience was cast off like a worn surplice.

The noble lay conspirators likewise saw their opportunity. Dutch William cared nothing for royal sway in England, provided he could bleed the country to his heart's content of men and money for his continental wars. This suited the "Revolution Houses" exactly. Having relieved themselves of the land tax, which was practically a war tax, they were the only class in the community who had nothing to lose, but everything to gain, by foreign wars. War provided younger sons with army and navy commissions, and the more ports that were closed to commerce, the higher rose the price of agricultural produce, and the higher rent. "A long war and a short crop!" became the favourite toast of peers and country gentlemen. In 1688 wheat, which had occasionally valued 26s. per quarter, stood at 46s. By 1773, under the fostering care of the "Revolution Houses," the price had mounted up to 127s. At the close of the long struggle it was still 116s. The price of meat was sextupled; of cheese quintupled; of butter quadrupled; of shoes trebled; and of all other articles of food and clothing in proportion.

From the accession of William and Mary, down to the Reform Bill of 1832, there was literally no check on the unbridled sway of the aristocracy. For all the bloody wars waged against liberty in the New World and the Old, during that calamitous period, they, and they alone, were responsible. The House of Commons was merely an outpost of the Lords, almost wholly manned by brothers and brothers-in-law, uncles and nephews. They might very well have sat in one chamber. "All were John Thompson's bairns" Five-sixths of the Lower were directly or indirectly "placed" by the "Upper" House.

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The wars waged by the aristocracy from 1688 downwards, it has been estimated, have cost the nation the inconceivable sum of £3,430,000,000 in payments; £2,790,000,000 in interest on Debt; while £750,000,000 odd remain to be paid, to say nothing of the sacrifice of more than Two Millions of precious British lives, Every one of these barbarous enterprises, of which the National Debt is a perpetual reminder, posterity will condemn, has indeed already condemned, as a flagrant crime. Mr. Labouchere has been rallied for affirming at the Great St. James's Hall meeting at the end of last session that the House of Lords has inflicted greater calamities on the nation than all the thieves' kitchens in the land; but really he greatly understated the facts. To let loose five thousand panthers among us would be a trifle to being saddled with five hundred peers.

Marlborough's famous victories all ended in—Blenheim Park and the perpetual pension which the Government recently commuted for the shameful sum of £107,000, administering to Mr. Bradlaugh a studied insult in the process. John Churchill was not merely repeatedly guilty of high treason; but he was convicted by Parliament of embezzling public moneys to the extent of £400,000 and upwards. He escaped punishment. Why marvel at the assurance of the descendants of such a successful rogue? The American war cost us £136,000,000, and the grandest heritage on the planet—the now United States. We spent a billion and a quarter to restore the Bourbons, and lo! M. Grèvy is President of the French Republic! So much for the statesmanlike foresight of our Old Nobility! Is it not time that this incorrigible ring of evil-doers should be rooted out once and for all? Were one to impugn the moral government of this world, what stronger argument could be found than the continued existence of the House of Lords?

The "glorious Revolution" of 1688, from which we are wont to date so many imaginary national blessings, really had the effect of subjecting both the People and the Crown to the aristocracy. From 1688 to 1832 their power was simply unlimited. They brought in Dutch William, but with very few exceptions the "pure patriots" of the Revolution maintained a clandestine correspondence with the exiled James II. This William III. knew full well, and to keep page 56 them to their allegiance he was obliged to bribe his aristocratic supporters with gifts of nearly the whole of the Crown lands and of vast estates of outlawed Jacobites in Ireland and England. When William died it was found that the revenue of all the Crown lands that remained unalienated did not amount to more than £15,000 per annum. Even as late as Charles II.'s reign they were rented at £263,000. The Sidneys, Bentincks, Pellings, Ginckels, Rouvignys, and other native and foreign cormorants, robbed the nation of this magnificent heritage, and to compensate the Crown for its losses they invented the Civil List. In a word, the people were saddled directly with the cost of royalty, which at this moment amounts to a round million sterling per annum.

One result of this nefarious transaction they were unable to foresee. Paupers are never popular, and royal pauperism is infinitely more objectionable than proletariat pauperism. Even "the Divinity that doth hedge a king" is not a very imposing figure begging-box in hand. By this notorious robbery, however, the aristocracy contrived thoroughly to manipulate the Crown.

It remains to be seen how they were able to subjugate the people. Their chief weapons were parliamentary corruption and foreign wars. In 1785 it was shown beyond cavil that in a population of 30,000,000 only 15,000 enjoyed the franchise. Thirty-five constituencies having no electors at all returned seventy-five hon. members to parliament. Forty-six other places, each with less than fifty electors, returned ninety members. Ninety-seven members were actually nominated; seventy were indirectly appointed by peers and the Treasury; 139 more were placed by individual commoners; in a word, a clear majority of the House of Commons were the nominees of 160 persons. It was to preserve this monstrous state of things intact that the aristocracy, down to 1832, the year of the Reform Bill, strained every nerve. It was for this intolerable régime that the Duke of Wellington was willing to risk a bloody revolution had he but been able to satisfy himself that the military would fire on the people. It was the dread that the soldiers would fraternise with the reformers when the crisis culminated that alone saved England from the horrors of a civil war.

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Attempts, gallant attempts, there had been before 1832 to deprive the aristocracy of some portion of the unbounded power which they had contrived to concentrate in their hands. Sir Francis Dashwood in 1745; the younger Pitt in 1782; Mr. Grey in 1785 and again in 1795 and 1797; and Sir Francis Burdett in 1819, had raised the question of reform, but raised it in vain. Bribery completely stifled the voice of the nation.

The aristocratic revolutionists of 1688 were nearly all bribers or bribees. Mr. Speaker received one thousand pounds for expediting the passage of an Orphans Bill through the House, and was expelled for his clumsiness in the transaction; so also was the Chairman of Committees, who was equally imprudent. Danby, the Duke of Leeds, Lord President of the Council, was likewise convicted of accepting large bribes from the old East India Company, which in a single year spent no less than £167,000 in secret service money. Danby contended that the interests of the glorious Revolution were involved in his pocketing the money of the East India Company!

Wyndham thus faithfully summarised the situation:—"A minister possessed of immense wealth, the plunder of the nation, with a parliament chiefly composed of men whose seats are purchased, and whose votes are bought at the expense of the public treasure." In ten years Walpole spent £1,453,000 of "Secret-service" money!

The bursting of the South Sea Bubble was an event which revealed to the meanest intelligence the true character of government by aristocracy. The Prime Minister, Sunderland, pocketed bribes amounting to £50,000; Mr. Secretary Craggs, £30,000; the King's German mistresses, £30,000, and so on, from the greatest even to the least.

But if the aristocracy thus shamelessly pillaged the nation for themselves, what is still more astonishing is that they were almost equally generous with their country's money in their dealings with Continental despots and princelings. Wherever freedom dared to lift its head abroad, there was the purse of England open for its suppression. We not merely fought for despotism everywhere, but we paid the despots to fight for themselves. The long war waged against Louis XIV., as has been said, practically ended in the status page 58 quo ante helium—plus Blenheim Park and the Marlborough Perpetual Pension. The Tory aristocrats, to spite the Whig aristocrats, stepped in at the very nick of time, and by the Treaty of Utrecht, secured to the Grand Monarque in his defeat almost all the fruits of victory.

We then undertook to prevent the seizure of Silesia by that unprincipled Prussian, Frederick, whom even Carlyle's genius could not convert into other than an unmitigated scamp. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle formally secured to the Prussian robber his booty.

After this we thought well to become the ally of such a successful thief. Having outraged Austria, it was time for Frederick to attack almost equally unoffending Saxony. We not merely lent him troops, but paid the ruffian £670,000 per annum by way of subsidy. This step brought down on us Russia, France, Spain, and Austria, and ultimately lost us the United States; for it is very doubtful if, without French aid, the colonists would have been able single handed to make head against the heavy odds opposed to them. After a long struggle with Spain we contrived by treaty to secure a great and honourable triumph. The "Assienta," a monopoly to supply the South American slave-markets with kidnapped Africans, was conceded to us for a period of four years!

True, the petty German despots came to our aid in the fratricidal struggle with our "kin beyond sea." That was to be expected in so bad a cause, but, as usual, they did nothing without ample backsheesh. The Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel had his £10,000 per annum, the Duke of Brunswick his £15,000, and the Prince of Hesse, who kidnapped a paltry 688 of his subjects for us, his £6,000.

It was even worse in the dreadful struggle to restore the Bourbons and to keep the worn-out monarchies and aristocracies of Europe on their feet. France rose in her might, and proclaimed to an astonished world the Rights of Man. England paid every tyrant, great and small, who would raise or promise to raise an armed hand against the Revolution. The Austrian Autocrat was encouraged to defend his throne by an annual subsidy, varying from a million and a half to two millions. The Russian Autocrat generally got from two to three millions yearly to enable him to maintain intact in his dominions the sacred heritage of serfdom. The Duke of page 59 Brunswick, for a miserable contingent of 2,200 men, was allowed £16,000 per annum; and even the services of the pirate Dey of Algiers were eagerly secured in this unholy crusade against liberty. In a single year the despots of the Continent were glutted with £14.000,000 of British gold to encourage them to keep their wretched subjects in thraldom.

These enormous sums, the pillage of the English Treasury, on which the toilers of this unhappy country are still paying interest in the shape of national debt, were almost wholly lost or fraudulently misapplied. When Napoleon made a conquest, he also made a "requisition," and the requisition was generally satisfied out of English subsidies. His majesty of Prussia peremptorily demanded upwards of two millions to enable him to take the field against the French in the Netherlands in conjunction with a British force. The sum was paid, and no sooner had he clutched the money than he set off to assist Russia in suppressing "Warsaw's last champion," Kosciusko. Poland was finally partitioned with British gold. Nice allies these Prussian vultures and Russian bears, but exactly such as our old nobility might have been expected to honour with their friendship and glut with gold which it was theirs to spend, but not to earn.

The whole of this dreadful period of unbridled aristocracy is marked by a long train of bloodshed, corruption, debt, and protectionist legislation. The Corn-laws kept the people's stomachs empty of food, and the pockets of the peers and their relations full of rent. And yet, strange to say, even in those halcyon days it was found then, as always, difficult to keep our Old Nobility alive. George the Third had to recruit the diminishing brood of vampires by the creation, or restoration, as it was euphemistically called in some cases, of no fewer than 522 brand new peerages.

If ever the English people can be aroused to an adequate sense of the terrible crimes which the aristocracy have perpetrated in their name and at their expense, they will either repudiate the National Debt altogether or lay its burden wholly on the shoulders of the class who have so long befooled and plundered them. If ever the National Debt— page 60 her Majesty's Debt, as it ought to be called—is to be paid off, let rent and not industry be the sufferer. As soon as the Land Restoration Leagues of England and Scotland have attained their object, as soon as rent begins to flow into the local treasuries or the imperial Exchequer instead of the pockets of noble lords and their squirearchical satellities, it will be easy to liquidate the national debt and to solve a good many other knotty problems at present insoluble,