Liverpool's Introduction of the Corn Laws after the war left the lower classes starving while the rich landowners made huge profits. The Corn Laws were a measure to protect Britain's Farmers (Land owning gentry) from foreign competition, raising the price of grain. This scheme achieved its intended purpose, and until 1817 the gentry enjoyed large prices. The cost of this was that the poorer people in the country could barely afford enough food to survive. This came combined with a run of bad harvests, causing grain supply to dwindle which massively increasing prices as no foreign grain could be imported. In fact, the situation became so bad that the government felt the need to introduce the Speenhamland system, providing all poor people with enough money to meet this inflated price for bread. The system backfired as Landowners again realised they could profit from the governments actions by reducing their wages, with the Speenhamland system making up the difference. The hypocrisy is that the large amount of money needed to finance the Speenhamland system came mostly from indirect taxation, mainly accounted for by the lower classes. The Government had greatly increased their personal wealth at the expense of the poor. Many reactionaries of the day saw this as clear class legislation, inspiring many rallies and protests.
The abolition of Income Tax and the increase of Indirect Taxes to compensate directly benefited the rich whilst severely affecting the poor. Income tax was generally thought by the aristocracy to be an extreme measure only necessary during the wartime. Once the war had ended, the government still desperately needed the funding it represented, however gave in to pressure from backbencher MPs as the tax was progressive and therefore affected the rich to a greater degree. The Government needed to replace these lost funds, and to do so increased indirect taxation on the purchase of goods. This of course took a huge toll on the poorer people, who had had barely enough to survive on previously. These measures also inspired outrage from middle and lower class activists, as the government was again taking measures that would benefit only the rich landed gentry.
The protest at these actions may have continued peacefully had the government not violently suppressed supposedly peaceful gatherings and imprisoned influential radical figures. Henry hunt, a leading propagator of the idea of parliamentary reform through constitutional methods was implicated in Rioting in London in which he had no part, reinforcing the feeling of Government suppression of new ideas. The Spa Fields Riot, where a small splinter group of an essentially peaceful meeting attempted armed revolt, was used by the government as an excuse to introduce alarming new measures including the suspension of Habeas Corpus (freedom from imprisonment without trial) and the Seditious Meetings Act, which limited public gatherings. This was rightfully seen as a great impingement on personal liberties. Bamford, a leading radical, said "Personal Liberty not now being secure from hour to hour…leading reformers are induced to leave their homes and seek concealment." The populace took this as a clear sign of no hope for reform, and so triggered several more violent incidents. The march of the Blanketeers, an entirely peaceful protest, ended in several injuries and even a death when local magistrates became alarmed and ordered the dispersal of the march by force. This added to the feeling of oppressive silencing of opposition to the government.
The Peterloo Massacre and Introduction of the six acts that followed it was one of the biggest infringements of civil liberty the government of this country has ever made. The government demonstrated its suppressive nature by forcefully attacking a peaceful meeting for parliamentary reform, containing many families and small children. 11 people were killed and 400 were injured, causing much of the country to become riotous as a result. The government compounded their error, and further angered the populace by introducing the six acts, or "gagging acts" as they were popularly known. The Acts essentially prevented any form of opposition to the government, giving magistrates the power to search the homes of any suspected radicals, rapidly punish "treason" crimes, and suppress free press that opposed the government. The Acts were extremely over the top in the situation, and incited more violence rather than controlling it, as violence was really the only way the government had of enforcing the acts. The Acts were conclusive evidence of the repressive nature of the government and turned many thousands more people over to radical dissent. This directly caused the attempted assassination of the cabinet (Cato Street Conspiracy).
The Government's Ineffectual handling of other affairs encouraged the feeling that Liverpool's Cabinet was useless and needed replacement. The botching of the divorce of George IV from his wife Queen Caroline, was the cause of great public scandal, and caused the resignations of two ministers. The Government had been incapable of effectively resolving the issue. However, public hostility was all that ministers had to fear, the threat of radical uprising had diminished as all the inspirational leaders for change had been imprisoned, and any attempted protest was powerfully suppressed. True the Government had prevented serious civil disturbance, but only by violently crushing any attempt at such.
On the other hand, the Government, in many modern historians view, did make the best it could of a bad situation. Britain after all, was the most democratic country in Europe at the time, and so demand for rapid political reform was not regarded as such a pressing issue. In many cases, miscommunication and lack of coordination was the main cause behind the violence towards the uprisings. Factors entirely outside the governments control did add to the situation. The French Revolution especially had stirred romantic dreams of a democratic Britain, attainable through force, and the rise of the cities and increasing population combined to push radicals into centre stage with captive audiences. The growth of an upwardly-aspiring middle class, that resented the Aristocrats arrogant superiority, because of the growth of towns, led to radicals having a politically interested demographic from which to recruit.
However, Taken overall Lord Liverpool's Government created Laws that were class discriminate. They had therefore shown themselves to the general populace to be interested primarily in their own gain, and not the general welfare of the people. In this respect, they are directly responsible for all the unrest that followed. The Laws exacerbated existing problems caused by the French Revolution, bad harvests, and economic downturn, and the repression of personal freedom and expression through the implementation of the six acts, caused those dissidents to take radical action to make their grievances heard. The Government handled the initial unrest badly responding with force when a more diplomatic response would have been more appropriate. Eventually, it is true that the Government ended the series of disturbances, but only through a policy of harsh retaliation to any radical opposition. The Government may have prevented a worse situation from developing, but that does not change the fact that Liverpool's Government was almost completely responsible for the general unrest that did occur in the years 1915 to 1921, whether from wrong actions or merely inaction.
