ears to shock the charitable sensibilities of
the public, and actually produced some local riots. When the price of
bread rose the clamour naturally increased, and petitions multiplied
until a committee was appointed in 1837 to review the operation of the
act. In the end the committee found, as might have been expected, that,
however painful the state of transition, the change had permanently
improved the condition of the poor in England.

[Pageheading: _QUESTION OF APPROPRIATION._]

While the bill was still in the house of commons the ministry which
framed it was torn by dissensions; before it came on for its second
reading in the lords Grey had ceased to be premier. The disruption of
his government had been foreseen for months, but it was directly caused
by hopeless discord on Irish policy. Anglesey had been forced by
ill-health to resign the vice-royalty, and the Marquis Wellesley, who
succeeded him, was more acceptable to Irish nationalists. But the king's
speech at the opening of the session contained a stern condemnation of
the repeal movement. O'Connell at once declared war, and the angry
feelings of his followers were inflamed by a personal and public quarrel
between Althorp and Sheil. Another incident, in itself trivial,
disclosed the discord prevailing in the cabinet on Irish affairs, and,
though O'Connell was defeated on a motion against the union by a
crushing majority of 523 to 38, the disturbed state of Ireland continued
to distract the ministerial councils. The ingenious devices of Stanley
and Littleton for solving the insoluble Irish tithe question had proved
almost abortive; the government officials employed to collect tithe were
almost as powerless to do so as the old tithe-proctors, and a new
proposal to convert tithe into a land tax was naturally ridiculed by
O'Connell as delusive. He made a speech so conciliatory in its tone as
to startle the house, but no words, however smooth, could now conjure
away the irreconcilable difference of purpose between those who regarded
Church property as sacred and those who regarded it not only as at the
disposal of the state, but as hitherto unjustly monopolised by a single
religious communion. It was reserved for Lord John Russell to "upset the
coach" by openly declaring his adhesion to "appropriation," in the sense
of diverting to other objects, secular or otherwise, such revenues of
the established Church as were not strictly required for the benefit of
its own