CHAPTER LVII
DISRAELI AND GLADSTONE
Not very much is known about these two extremely memorable ministers, except that (a) Disraeli “brought back Peace with Honour” after the famous Balkan Treaty of Berlin, which said:
1. that Bosnia should be ceded to Herzegovina;
2. that Herzegovina should be ceded to Bosnia (This is called the Eastern Question);
3. that Bulgaria should be divided into two parts (Later, Bulgaria was re-divided into one part by Mr. Gladstone);
4. that anyone found in Armenia should be gradually divided into twelve parts. (Mr. Gladstone subsequently criticized the effect of this clause.)
Disraeli also very generously purchased the Panama Canal from the Khalif and presented it to Queen Victoria with a huge bunch of primroses (his favourite flower), thus becoming Lord Beaconsfield and a romantic minister. The Queen, however, remained obdurately plural and not amused, even when Disraeli romantically called her a Faery Queen.
(b) Gladstone, on the other hand, endeavoured (quite unsuccessfully) to please Her Majesty by chewing a milk pudding 79 times every day, and by his memorable inventions; amongst the latter were an exceptionally uncomfortable collar which he inhabited for 62 years on the floor of the House of Commons, and an extremely simple kind of bag which he designed to enable the Turks to be driven out of Europe Bag and Baggage. Gladstone also invented the Education Rate by which it was possible to calculate how soon anybody could be educated, and spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the Question, so that as he grew older and older Gladstone became angrier and angrier, and grander and grander, and was ultimately awarded the affectionate title of “the G.P.O.” Gladstone was thus clearly a Good Man but a Bad Thing (or, alternatively, a Bad Man but a Good Thing).
QUEEN VICTORIA’S JAMBOREE
Finally, all attempts (even by Gladstone and Disraeli) to amuse her, and to prevent her being good, having failed, the Queen held a Jamboree in Westminster Abbey and Crowned Heads and Oriental Patentees from all parts of the world came to acknowledge publicly the Good Queen’s Victory over all her ministers and generals.