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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 1334: PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF 1849—OPENING OF THE SESSION.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF 1849—OPENING OF THE SESSION.

On the second of February the queen in person opened a new session. Her majesty’s speech referred to most great matters which had occurred in the latter part of 1848, and to such subjects as formed the leading features of the policy of the ministry for 1849. Her majesty especially recommended an alteration in the navigation laws, and she asked for further administrative power to preserve order in Ireland. The general tone and tenor of the speech were congratulatory. Lord Stanley, in the lords, moved an amendment to the usual address, which represented that the state of the country was not such as to call for or justify an address pervaded by a spirit of gratulation. The amendment was rejected, but only by a majority of two. In the commons Mr. Disraeli moved an amendment upon the address, similar to that which Lord Stanley had proposed in the lords, and with no better success. Mr. Disraeli especially contended for keeping up a much larger fleet and army than the government proposed. His arguments were singularly opposed to those which, without any professed change of principle, he used eight years afterwards, against the government of Lord Palmerston, for refusing to reduce the army and navy when serious perils demanded their increase in the judgment of that astute and experienced minister. Mr. Grattan, son of the distinguished Irishman who assisted Irish independence in 1782, proposed an amendment adverse to the ministerial policy for Ireland, but it was rejected in a very decisive manner. The temper of the house, as displayed towards Mr. Grattan, was harsh, invidiously national on all sides, and especially offensive to the popular party in Ireland.