This conflict[232] was eagerly canvassed in all its stages by Englishmen of all classes, who seemed at this time to take a keener interest in the fascinating problems of American politics than in their own domestic affairs. But perhaps nothing appealed more strongly to the imagination of the people than the ease with which the American people disbanded their armies, and absorbed a million unpensioned officers and soldiers at the very moment of victory into the mass of the peaceful civil population. The calmness, courage, and good sense with which the Americans set aside the menaces of the war party against England, and applied themselves to pay off the six hundred millions sterling of their war debt, further commanded the admiration of the world. Not even in Mexico could the United States be persuaded to interfere. Their Government simply refused to recognise that of the Emperor Maximilian, and accredited a minister to the President of the Mexican Republic, who still waged a desultory struggle with the Imperial Government and its French allies. As France, however, had now thought it prudent to announce the withdrawal of her troops from Mexico, the United States could afford to wait for the inevitable issue.
The Danish Question, in which the Queen had so deeply interested herself during the previous year, was easily settled—for a time. Austria and Prussia agreed to share the spoils of war, and the Duchies were divided between them. This arrangement, formulated by the Convention of Gastein, in August, averted war between the allies. As for the views of the minor States and the claims of the Duke of Augustenburg, they were brusquely put aside. The Duke had made the fatal mistake of pretending to regard the services of Prussia in liberating the Duchies as uncalled for. He even hinted that his cause would otherwise have been much better managed by the Diet. When he came to Berlin to press his claims at the Prussian Court, he had an interview with Von Bismarck in the King’s billiard-room, which ought to have warned him of what was coming.
“At first,” said Bismarck once, “I wanted from him no more than what the minor Princes conceded in 1866. But he would not yield an inch (thank Heaven! thought I to myself, and thanks to the wisdom of his legal advisers).... At first I called him ‘Highness,’ and was altogether polite. But when he began to make objections about Kiel Harbour, which we wanted, and would listen to none of our military demands, I put on a different face. I now titled him ‘Translucency,’ and told him at last, quite coolly, that we could easily wring the neck of the chicken we ourselves had hatched.”[233]
The French Government described the Treaty of Gastein as an act of political “highway robbery and attorneyism.” Lord Russell condemned it as a mere expression of brute force, and the Fleets of France and England met and made a foolish demonstration at Cherbourg, by way of giving point to their diplomatic denunciations of the Convention. It was merely a temporary arrangement, which gave Prussia time to secure herself against France before she attempted to expel Austria from North Germany. At a mysterious interview between Napoleon and Bismarck at Biarritz, in October, it was supposed that, in return for vague promises to assist French schemes in Italy and Belgium, the Prussian Minister—now Count Von Bismarck—had obtained an equally vague pledge of benevolent neutrality from France.[234]
The last days of the moribund Parliament were enlivened by a grave personal scandal. Lord Chancellor Westbury was accused of having improperly and corruptly administered the patronage of his high office, and two cases were cited against him. One was that of Mr. Leonard Edmunds, who, though he had heavy defalcations in his accounts, was allowed to retire on a pension from the Clerkships of Patents and of the House of Lords, in favour of Westbury’s son. The other case rested on certain appointments which Westbury had made to offices, and on grants of retiring pensions in the Leeds Court of Bankruptcy. It was alleged that the Lord Chancellor, in making these appointments, had been influenced by family considerations detrimental to the public service. After receiving the Report of a Select Committee, the House of Commons censured Lord Westbury, who immediately resigned his office.[235] His Lordship, when he went to hand over the Great Seal to the Queen, had a somewhat painful interview with her Majesty. In his Diary, under date the 7th of July, Bishop Wilberforce writes:—“Going in to the Queen met Westbury coming out; his fallen look moved my compassion. Later I met him on the broad staircase looking quite down, as he wandered alone down to town. But Delane [the editor of the Times] told me that going up to London in the train he was quite uproarious in his jollity, professing such delight at being free from office, going to enjoy himself, foreign travel,” &c.
Parliament died of old age. It had exhausted its allotted septennial span, and was prorogued and dissolved on the 6th of July. The General Election created little stir or excitement in the country, because no appeal was made by either party to the constituencies on any vital question. The election of Mr. John Stuart Mill for Westminster roused some popular interest. The defeat of Mr. Gladstone at Oxford University was due to the votes of the non-resident graduates among the country clergy; and there was a stroke of unconscious irony in the success of the Opposition at Tiverton, where they managed to give Lord Palmerston a Tory as a colleague. The Liberals claimed to have carried 367 seats, and the Tories 290. But all speculation as to what course the new Parliament might adopt was cut short by the death of Lord Palmerston on the 18th of October. He was within two days of completing his eighty-first year, and, as his biographer says, “the half-opened cabinet-box on his table, and the unfinished letter on his desk, testified that he was at his post to the last.”[236] He had sat in sixteen Parliaments, and had been chosen to sit in a seventeenth. He had been a member of every Administration that had ruled England since 1807, save those of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Derby, and the voice of the nation rightly decreed for him the funeral honours of Westminster Abbey. It will always be a mystery why Palmerston succeeded in establishing, towards the end of his life, a personal dictatorship over the England which was governed by the £10 householder. In home politics he took hardly any interest. One day, for example, at Balmoral, when the Queen asked him for some information about a serious strike in the North of England, he replied that he had none; but “Madam,” said he, “I hear that the Russians have crossed the Pruth.” He was an aristocrat to the core, and his ideas of England’s mission in the world, and of her interests in the political forces and conflicts that shaped the destinies of nations, were those, not of a man of business or of affairs, but of a happy-hearted, reckless, pugnacious public-school-boy. To coolness, courage, and tenacity of purpose, he, however, added a dexterity in action that rendered him a successful as well as
In one of his letters to Sir Stratford Canning he reveals the secret of much of his power when he says, “I believe weakness and irresolution are on the whole the worst faults that statesmen can have. A man of energy may make a wrong decision but, like a strong horse that carries you rashly into a quagmire, he brings you by his sturdiness out on the other side.” Looking back on his career, it is hard to find one single stroke of his policy that can be justified by history, with the exception of the support he generously gave to the cause of Italian unity. The cornerstone of his policy in his last administrations was the Anglo-French alliance, and its worthlessness was attested not only by the enormous military expenditure which Palmerston himself extorted from the people to ward off a French invasion, but by the fact that the alliance itself always broke down to the disadvantage of England, whenever a strain was put upon it. His sympathy with democracy abroad brought him no credit, for it was insincere. It was displayed mainly in order to keep the Radical party quiet when the people began to demand reforms at home. His most wonderful practical achievement was that of reconciling both Tories and Radicals to the political supremacy of the extremely moderate Liberals—the Liberals who had been rendered Conservatives by the prosperity which Free Trade had conferred upon them. His cleverness in selecting serviceable subordinates, his personal loyalty to them, his geniality and cheerfulness, his singular gift of managing the House of Commons, all contributed to consolidate his influence in the country. His power over the House of Commons was probably greater than Peel’s. He knew, as if by instinct, in any emergency the kind of argument that was sure to tell on that Assembly. He ruled it through its foibles, its prejudices, and its impulses. He could adapt his style to every passing mood of its fickle temper, and alike in jest and earnest he was always on the level of its standard of good taste and fine feeling.
Lord Palmerston’s funeral took place in Westminster Abbey, accompanied by every mark of respect and honour. The arrangements made for filling up the vacancies in the Cabinet which were caused by his death were simple. Earl Russell was called upon by the Queen to assume the post of Premier. The Earl of Clarendon, then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Chichester Fortescue was made Secretary for Ireland in place of Sir Robert Peel, who had always warned his colleagues he would join the Tories after Palmerston’s death. The office of Under-Secretary for the Colonies was conferred upon Mr. W. E. Forster, M.P. for Bradford. Mr. Heath resigned the Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade, in which he was succeeded by Mr. Goschen. The important position of Leader of the Government in the House of Commons devolved upon Mr. Gladstone, who had found a seat in Lancashire. His financial genius had vastly added to the prestige of Lord Palmerston’s Ministry, and his commanding intellect and fascinating oratorical power had long before marked him out for the leadership.
Two evil incidents marred the latter portion of the year. These were the outbreak of the cattle disease which became known as “rinderpest,” in England and Scotland, and the development of the Fenian conspiracy in Ireland. Down to the middle of December 5,000 cases of “rinderpest” had occurred, and most of them had ended fatally. The plague, it is true, was disappearing in some districts, but in others its ravages were increasing, and a Royal Commission recommended that all movement of cattle in the country should be stopped for a time. Local authorities in many cases suspended fairs and markets.
The history of Ireland after the resignation of Lord Aberdeen was summed up in the administration of Coercion Acts that were rendered necessary by outrages which a peasantry infuriated by land clearances and rack-rents perpetrated. For a time the policy of eviction and emigration went on unresisted. In 1854 the rebels of ’48 were amnestied, but when they came back they found that Irishmen regarded them rather as reactionaries than rebels. As had always been the case in Ireland, the pendulum of public opinion had now swung over from Anti-Unionism to Separatism. The failure of ’48, the triumph of the evicting landlords, the progressive poverty of the people, the treachery of leaders like Sadlier and Keogh, who were bought up by the Whigs, disgusted Irishmen with Parliamentary agitation. The Fenian conspiracy was the outcome of this feeling. It originated among victims of the famine clearances, and among some of the men of ’48. It was introduced into Ireland during the Indian Mutiny by Mr. James Stephen, when it was known as the Phœnix Society. One of his first converts was a Jeremiah Donovan, of Skibbereen, who afterwards dubbed himself O’Donovan Rossa. He in turn, induced ninety out of the hundred members of the Skibbereen Club to join his band. That Society could hardly have conducted its proceedings with much secrecy at this time, for it was soon denounced from every altar in the country. The Lord-Lieutenant, however, proclaimed it, and there and then elevated the Phœnix plotters to the dignity of national heroes. The leaders were arrested, and on pleading guilty were released with admonition. But over the Atlantic the Society had taken firmer root among the victims of evicting landlords, as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. Yet even there it would have probably perished from the opposition of the priests and the advocates of open agitation, but for the cleverness with which its leaders made capital out of the famous McManus funeral. McManus, one of the most amiable and highly respected members of the Young Ireland Party, had, after his escape from Van Diemen’s Land, settled in California, where he died. It was resolved by his compatriots to exhume his body and convey it to Ireland for burial. The route of the funeral, from San Francisco to Dublin, was naturally at every stage the scene of a patriotic Irish demonstration, and by adroit management the Fenian leaders had contrived to get control of all the arrangements, so that the reflected prestige of this impressive and imposing demonstration of Irish nationalism went to their credit. In Ireland the Society was soon considered to be the only one that had any real power to help the people, and after the McManus funeral it grew apace. In 1862 it announced at Chicago its intention of establishing Irish independence by armed force, and its organ—the Irish People—was founded in Dublin by Messrs. John O’Leary, Thomas Clark Luby, and Charles James Kickham. For two years the Society was permitted to carry on its propaganda. Then in September, 1865, Luby, O’Leary, Kickham, and Stephens were arrested. Ten days after their capture Stephens escaped from jail by aid of his gaolers, who were also Fenians. In November the others were tried for treason-felony, and sentenced to penal servitude for terms varying from ten to twenty years. The organisation then became a small club in New York, whose leaders quarrelled amongst themselves. They enjoyed a fictitious importance for a time, because the Democratic Party and partisans of the Southern States, invariably professed Fenian sympathies when contesting State elections.
Two Colonial disputes gave the Government of the day some trouble before the end of the year. The Assembly of Victoria tried to pass a Protective Tariff over the veto of the Council, by tacking it on to the Bill granting the supplies for the year. The Council held to its veto. The Government was thus left without money for the public service, and affairs came to a deadlock. In the circumstances the Governor, Sir Charles Darling, cut the knot of the difficulty by allowing his Ministers to raise money under the sanction of resolutions passed by the Assembly, or representative branch of the Legislature. He also entered into an ingenious arrangement with a bank in Melbourne. The law forbade voluntary payments from the Treasury which were not authorised by an Appropriation Bill. But the bank made advances to the Treasury, and then sued it for recovery. The Treasury of course confessed judgment when sued, and thus the law was evaded.
An outbreak of negroes in Jamaica had been suppressed with great vigour by Governor Eyre. But it was soon suspected that he had mistaken a riot for a revolution, and that the local authorities had acted in violation of law, and with callous disregard of the dictates of humanity. Eyre was suspended, and a Royal Commission was sent out at the end of the year to report on the occurrence.
Though the Queen remained in close seclusion during 1865, she gave more than one token of the vigilance with which she watched popular interests. The year 1864 was famous for the number and the serious character of its railway accidents, and yet it was hopeless to expect a Palmerstonian Parliament to compel the railway companies to improve their management. In the circumstances, it occurred to the Queen that she might effect some good by using her moral influence on behalf of the travelling public, and she accordingly directed the following letter to be sent to the chief companies just as the year opened:—
“Sir Charles Phipps has received the commands of her Majesty the Queen to call the attention of the directors of the —— to the increasing number of accidents which have lately occurred upon different lines of railroad, and to express her Majesty’s warmest hope that the directors of the —— will carefully consider every means of guarding against these misfortunes, which are not at all the necessary accompaniments of railway travelling. It is not for her own safety that the Queen has wished to provide in thus calling the attention of the Company to the late disasters. Her Majesty is aware that when she travels extraordinary precautions are taken, but it is on account of her family, of those travelling upon her service, and of her
people generally, that she expresses the hope that the same security may be insured for all as is so carefully provided for herself. The Queen hopes it is unnecessary for her to recall to the recollection of the railway directors the heavy responsibility which they have assumed since they have succeeded in securing the monopoly of the means of travelling of almost the entire population of the country.”
On the other hand, evidence was not wanting that her Majesty’s retirement had led to laxity of administration in her household. On the 4th of March, for example, Lord Malmesbury writes in his Diary:—“All London is talking of the way in which the Corps Diplomatique has been invited to the Queen’s reception. It was, as far as I could understand, in these terms:—‘That the Queen would graciously receive them, male and female, at a Court to be held at Buckingham Palace.’ All those concerned are trying to shift the responsibility upon one another. The diplomatists have sent their cards of invitation to their respective Courts, and therefore it has produced a great sensation all over the world, as the term mâle et femelle is never used in French, except in speaking of animals.”[237] But her Majesty’s kind and gracious bearing at this reception, which was held on the 13th of March, did much to neutralise the impression produced by the rudeness of the Lord Chamberlain’s Department. On the 14th of March the Queen visited the Consumptive Hospital at Brompton, bestowing on the patients in the various wards kindly words of sympathy. Circumstances prevented her from undertaking a journey to Ireland, where the people would have been pleased to have welcomed her at the inauguration of an International Exhibition. She, however, testified her interest in that enterprise by requesting the Prince of Wales to open the exhibition in Dublin on the 9th of May. Another son was born to the Prince and Princess on the 3rd of June, and on the 7th of July the infant was baptized in the chapel at Windsor in presence of the Queen, who named him George Frederick Ernest Albert. On the 6th of August the Queen’s second son, Prince Alfred, attained his majority, and was recognised, with her sanction, as heir to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
On the 8th of August the Queen, with Prince Leopold, the Princesses Helena, Louise, Beatrice, and suite, left England for Germany. She arrived at Coburg on the 11th, and immediately proceeded to Rosenau. On the 26th she unveiled the statue which had been set up in memory of the Prince Consort in the quaint market-place of Coburg. The town was en fête, every house being gay with garlands and banners, and decorated with trophies of arms and festoons of flowers and evergreens. The troops paraded the square, while crowds of light-hearted students and schoolboys, and a great concourse of loyal burghers and honest country-folk who had assembled to see the ceremony, gave life and colour to a picturesque scene. The Court carriages bore a brilliant company of Royal personages. Soon after four o’clock in the afternoon the bells in all the steeples in the town pealed forth joyous notes; the cannon of the fortress thundered out a royal salute, and the bands in the square played the English National Anthem. Then the Queen’s carriage drove up amidst deafening cheers. She was accompanied by Prince Arthur and the Princess Beatrice, and was received by the Grand Duke, who led her to the front of the pavilion that had been prepared for the ceremony. She was clad in the deepest mourning, and under her bonnet was seen the cap à la Marie Stuart, which about this time she had begun to wear on all public occasions. The Burgomaster of Coburg presented her with a long and loyal address. The bells rang, the bands played, the cannon saluted again, and at a given signal the veil was withdrawn from the polished bronze statue, which stood out glittering and sparkling in the sultry sunshine of an autumnal afternoon. Walking up to the monument, the Queen handed to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha the bunch of flowers which had lain before her on the balcony of the pavilion. These he placed, together with another bouquet from the Princess Beatrice, on the pedestal of the statue, and the ceremony was over. On the 8th of September the Queen left Rosenau with the Princesses Helena and Louise and Prince Leopold, and stopped en route at Darmstadt, where she was met by the Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse. Proceeding to Ostend, the Queen paid a brief visit to King Leopold, after which she embarked at Antwerp in her yacht for Woolwich.
During the Queen’s autumnal holiday at Balmoral the Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse again visited her. Later in the year it was announced that the Princess Helena was to be married to the Prince Christian of Sleswig-Holstein, second son of the Duke of Augustenburg. “Many thanks,” writes the Princess Louis to the Queen on the 8th of December, “for your letter received yesterday with the account of Lenchen’s verlobung [betrothal]. I am so glad she is happy, and I hope every blessing will rest on them both that one can possibly desire.” It was arranged that the Queen should lend Frogmore to her daughter, so that she and her husband might be able to live in England. But the shadow of death was again brooding over the Royal Household. In the same letter in which the Princess Louis refers to her sister’s betrothal she writes, “I had a letter from Marie Brabant two days ago, where she says dear uncle’s [King Leopold] state is hopeless; but yesterday she telegraphed that he was rather better. What a loss it would be if he were to be taken from us, for his very name and existence, though he takes no active part in politics, are of weight and value.”[238] In England the news of King Leopold’s illness was received with some concern. The Queen had promised to open the next Session of Parliament in person, and it was feared that the death of his Majesty might interfere with a project in which her subjects of all classes were deeply interested. On the 11th of December King Leopold died, and on that day the Princess Louis of Hesse, ever ready to sympathise with her mother’s sorrows, wrote to the Queen, “Alas! alas! beloved Uncle Leopold is no more! How much for you, for us, for all, goes with him to the grave! One tie more of those dear old times is rent! I do feel for you so much, for dear uncle was indeed a father to you. Now you are head of all the family—it seems incredible, and that dear papa should not be by your side. The regret for dear Uncle Leopold is universal—he stood so high in the eyes of all parties; his life was a history in itself—and now that book is closed.” In another letter the Princess says, “The more I realise that we shall never see beloved Uncle Leopold again the sadder I grow. He had, apart from all his excellent qualities, such a charm as I believe we shall seldom find again.”
King Leopold’s life was indeed “a history in itself.” He was almost ostentatiously indifferent to his position—ever impressing on his subjects that he reigned in their interest rather than in his own. It has been said that he could always bring them to reason by threatening to abdicate. The sagacity and tact with which he prevented the Catholics and the Liberals in Belgium from coming to blows, gave him great influence in Europe. But that influence was enhanced by his capacity for diplomatic intrigue, and the opportunities for exercising it which his curious family connections gave him. Though he began life as one of the obscurest of the petty Princes of Germany, he had married in succession the heiress of England and the daughter of the King of the French. By a double marriage, his children were allied to the Imperial House of Hapsburg. He was the uncle and mentor of the Queen and the Prince Consort—indeed, he and Baron Stockmar had brought about their marriage. His position was supposed to be unassailable from the day when, on being threatened with a revolution, he calmly began to pack a carpet-bag in presence of the popular leaders, who thereupon, in a paroxysm of fear, implored him not to leave the country. Yet, according to Lord Malmesbury, “the last years of his life were spent in perpetual terror of Louis Napoleon, and he was constantly alarming our Ministers and everybody on the subject.”[239]
CHAPTER XI.
A STOP-GAP ADMINISTRATION.
End of the Era of Compromise—Dawn of the new Epoch of Reform—Opening of Parliament by the Queen—The Queen’s Nervous Prostration at Osborne—Introduction of the Reform Bill—Hostility of the House of Commons—Dissentient Liberals in “the Cave of Adullam”—Defeat of the Reform Bill—Resignation of the Ministry—Lord Derby forms a Cabinet—His attempted Coalition with the Whig Dukes—Domestic Policy during the Session—The House of Commons and the Rinderpest—Another Prosperity Budget—Large Remissions of Taxation—Coercing Ireland—The White Terror in Jamaica—Marriage of the Princess Helena—The Financial Embarrassment of the Princess Louis of Hesse—The Queen Intercedes with Prussia on behalf of Hesse-Darmstadt—The Queen’s Gift to Mr. Peabody—The Queen’s Visit to Aldershot—The Foundation of the Albert Medal—Marriage of the Princess Mary of Cambridge—The Queen’s first Telegram to the President of the United States—The Queen’s Visit to Aberdeen and Wolverhampton.
The year 1866 will be memorable as the beginning of the new epoch of strife, controversy, and political activity which followed the death of Palmerston. The spell of compromise by which he had paralysed the life of England was broken, and Mr. Gladstone’s appointment as leader of the House of Commons filled the working classes with the brightest hopes. It was known that he was in favour of such an extension of the franchise as would partially redress
the wrong done by the Reform Bill of 1832, which deprived Labour of the political power it enjoyed under the unreformed Parliamentary system. As one of their representative men has said, “those ameliorations of the laws for which they [the working classes] had looked in vain during so many years of Whig rule, when electoral reform was said to be deferred in favour of legal reforms that were only talked about, had to be preceded by the enfranchisement of the class whose welfare required them; and Mr. Gladstone, on his part, was conscious that he could not carry the important measures which he contemplated without first strengthening his hands by a considerable extension of the franchise and redistribution of seats.”[240] Moreover, the civil and military triumph of the United States, marked by moderation in the hour of victory, and invincible valour in the press of battle, gave an irresistible impulse to Democracy in England. But the Party of Reform were well aware that a fierce struggle lay before them. In 1831-32 the House of Lords was the enemy that had to be faced. In 1866 the House of Commons was quite as hostile as the House of Lords, to changes that might affect the power, privileges, and ease of the comfortable classes. Would the Government bring in a feeble Reform Bill which could be accepted by the Commons? In that case the country might look forward to another decade of stagnation. Would the measure be large and comprehensive? In that case the opposition of the Commons could be met only by a dissolution. But supposing, as was not unlikely, that under a £10 franchise a freshly-elected House proved as hostile to Reform as the old one, what was to be done? Its opposition could not, like that of the Crown, be overcome by a refusal of supplies, or like that of the Peers, by the creation of new members. For such a state of affairs the only possible remedy might be—Revolution. Such were the speculations and the forebodings with which thoughtful men greeted the New Year of 1866.
Parliament met on the 1st of February, and Mr. Denison was elected Speaker. It was known that Lord Russell was anxious to strengthen his Ministry by giving Mr. Bright a seat in the Cabinet, but his colleagues objected to this step, and the omen was not auspicious for the Party of Reform. Writing on the 6th of February in his Diary, Lord Malmesbury says, “the Queen opened Parliament to-day. She came in a State coach with her eight cream-coloured horses, but entered by the Peers’ entrance. She was well received, but did not wear her robes, which were placed on the Throne, and did not read the Speech, which was read by the Lord Chancellor.”[241] It was the first State ceremony at which the Queen had assisted since the death of her husband, and the scene in the Upper House was unusually brilliant. The bright dresses of the Peeresses, the mass of gorgeous colour on the floor of the House, where the Peers wore their robes, the flashing lights from glittering orders and uniforms worn by the splendid company of foreign diplomatists, afforded a spectacle that gladdened the artistic eye. It was marred only by the wild and disorderly scramble of the members of the House of Commons for places. They trooped into the Royal presence like a band of disorderly roughs let loose from Donnybrook Fair. The Speaker was hustled aside and jammed against the edge of the Bar as he vainly attempted to make his obeisance to the Queen. The leading members of the Government vanished in the struggle, though Sir Charles Wood was ultimately discovered in an attitude of agony almost impaled on the sharp carving of an oaken lion rampant. As for the sword of the Sergeant-at-Arms, it got entangled with everybody’s legs, including his own.
The reaction which followed the excitement of the ceremony had caused much nervous depression, and the Queen was accordingly recommended to seek repose at Osborne. “I am happy to think,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse to her mother, in a letter referring to the event, “that you are quiet at Osborne after all you had gone through. The emotion and all other feelings recalled by such an event must have been very powerful and have tried you much. It was noble of you, my darling mama, and the great effort will bring compensation. Think of the pride and pleasure it would have given darling papa—the brave example to others not to shrink from their duty; and it has shown that you felt the intense sympathy which the English people evinced and still evince in your misfortune.”
It was soon apparent that the question of Reform would exhaust the energies of the Legislature, and on the 12th of March Mr. Gladstone introduced what came to be known as the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill. It proposed to reduce the County Franchise from £50 rental to £14, and the Borough Franchise from £10 to £7. It also gave votes to lodgers and £50 depositors in savings banks. The rate-paying clauses of the Reform Act were abolished. The Bill, it was estimated, would admit to the franchise 172,000 new voters in counties, 204,000 in towns, and 24,000 under the Lodger and Savings Banks qualifications, i.e., 400,000 in all. Of these, one-half belonged to the working classes properly so-called. The House of Commons was not in a pleasant humour for dealing with Reform. The timid classes were alarmed by a speech which Mr. Gladstone delivered during Easter at Liverpool, in which he declared that “the Government had crossed the Rubicon, broken the bridge, and burned their boats behind them.” This, it was vowed, meant that he for one was prepared to roll the Constitution down the inclined plane of Democracy. The country gentlemen were angry, because they thought the Government had compensated them shabbily for the losses they suffered from the Cattle Plague. The plutocracy were in low spirits, because in spring a great financial collapse had smitten the City. Some country banks had failed. The greater part of the stock of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway was offered in the market for “a mere song.” On the 10th of May the bank of Messrs. Overend and Gurney stopped payment, with liabilities amounting to £19,000,000. On the 11th the City was in a frenzy of despair, and Government had to authorise the Bank of England to issue notes beyond the legal limit. Other financial institutions perished, and the blight of bankruptcy fell on the land. English credit on the Continent was so low that the Foreign Office issued a circular explaining to foreigners the distinction drawn in England between insolvency and lack of money. Employers of labour, again, were irritated against the working classes now claiming the franchise, for Trades Unions were growing more aggressive and turbulent every day. The Fenian disturbances in Ireland also gave rise to much uneasiness. The uncertain condition of the Continent led people to urge that, instead of wasting time in debating Reform, Parliament ought to make the defensive system of the Empire effective. Above and beyond all things, it was felt that a Reform Bill involved a dissolution, and to Members of the House of Commons who had just spent large sums of money in getting elected, this was a sufficient temptation to oppose Reform. If we consider the natural effect of all these different motives and feelings on a House of Commons elected to support Lord Palmerston’s colourless domestic policy, we can easily understand why the Russell-Gladstone Bill fared badly. It was opposed by the Tories and by nominal Liberals like Lord Elcho, Mr. Lowe, Lord Grosvenor, Mr. Horsman, and Mr. Bouverie. It was finally defeated in Committee by Lord Dunkellin, who carried a motion substituting a rating for a rental qualification, the effect of which would have been to limit the franchise to £9 instead of £7 householders in towns, and to £16 instead of £14 householders in counties. The Radicals, however, did not regard the defeat of the measure with much grief, though they had loyally supported Mr. Gladstone. Their hearts were in truth set on obtaining a much lower qualification than the Bill offered. Independent critics again, who had no sympathy with the savage diatribes against the working classes which the Tories and the Liberal seceders poured forth day after day, also considered that the Bill had one serious defect. It did not put the franchise on a basis solid enough to be permanent. To fix it at £7 to-day was only to start an agitation to-morrow to reduce it to £3, or to nothing at all. Far better, it was argued, return to the old Radical programme of Household Suffrage, which, at all events, possessed the elements of finality. In fact, early in June Ministers saw that the Bill was doomed, and an intrigue was set on foot between the Cabinet and the “Adullamites”[242] for the purpose of withdrawing the Bill, on condition that the Liberal seceders would steadily support the Ministers on all other questions. After their defeat on the 18th of June, the Cabinet resigned, and although the Queen was somewhat opposed to this step, she waived her objections to it.
According to Lord Malmesbury, the Government first of all thought of dissolving Parliament, but abandoned this idea, fearing they would lose by it. Lord Malmesbury also says that “the Queen being on a visit to Osborne for ten days, refused to shorten her stay, and the country remained for a month with the Government in abeyance. At last her Majesty returned, and appointed Lord Derby Prime Minister. He tried to form a coalition with some Whig Dukes, and invited Lord Clarendon and the Duke of Somerset to join him. They refused. He then did the same by the Adullamites, most of whom also declined. Young Lord Lansdowne, who at their head had promised to support him, died suddenly, and this accident increased his
difficulties. Encouraged by a meeting of twenty-three leading Conservatives, held at his house, Lord Derby formed the following Cabinet:—Lord Chancellor, Lord Chelmsford; President of the Council, Duke of Buckingham; Privy Seal, Lord Malmesbury; Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr. Walpole; Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Lord Stanley;[243] Secretary for War, General Peel; Secretary for Colonies, Lord Carnarvon; Secretary for India, Lord Cranborne; Poor Law Board, Mr. Hardy; Board of Trade, Sir S. Northcote; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli; Secretary for Ireland, Lord Naas; Board of Works, Lord John Manners; Admiralty, Sir John Pakington.”[244] Lord Derby himself personally objected to take office because he could not feel confident of commanding a majority. Some of his friends, like the Marquis of Bath, were indeed angry that he had consented to serve again as Premier without definite pledges of support from the Whigs, whose hostility to Reform had shattered the last Cabinet.
Up to the time when the change of Ministry took place very little business had been done. A Bill dealing with the cattle plague had been introduced by the Home Secretary. It empowered local authorities to kill infected herds and stop all movement of cattle and all fairs in infected areas. For cattle thus sacrificed the owners were to receive from local authorities compensation to the extent of two-thirds of the value, but in no case was this to exceed £20 a head. The money was to be raised, one-third by a rate on the counties, one-third by a rate on the towns, and one-third by the cattle trade itself. The Radical Party admitted the principle of compensation. But Mr. J. S. Mill contended that if the infected animal was shown not to be worth two-thirds of what it would fetch in the market if healthy, the compensation given by the Government was excessive. The Bill, he also complained, compensated the landed interest for a loss some share of which the rest of the community, who were not indemnified, bore in the form of enhanced prices. Then, as the rate was to be purely local, those who suffered least would pay least, whereas the burden of recompense would fall heaviest on districts which suffered most. There could be no doubt that his proposal for a general rate on the land instead of a local rate was just. Mr. Gladstone, impressed by these arguments, agreed to limit the compensation to one-half instead of two-thirds of the value of the slaughtered animals, and the compromise was grudgingly accepted.
Mr. Gladstone introduced his Budget on the 3rd of May. The income, he said, had been £67,812,000 and the expenditure £66,474,000, leaving a surplus of £1,338,000. His estimated loss from remission of taxes had been very slightly below the actual loss, except in the case of Income Tax, for the wealth of the nation was now accumulating so rapidly, that a penny Income Tax, instead of producing £1,000,000, as had always been the calculation, produced £1,400,000. For the coming year Mr. Gladstone estimated, on the existing basis of taxation, a revenue of £67,575,000. His probable expenditure, from an increase of £78,000 in Estimates, he set down at £66,225,000, so that he had an estimated surplus of £1,350,000 to dispose of. He therefore repealed the timber duties, equalised the duties on wines in bottle and in wood, abolished the duty on pepper, and made a considerable reduction in the tax on carriages. He calculated that there would be a loss of £502,000 on the conversion of debt, so that he would, with these changes in taxation, be left with a surplus of £286,000. The financial debates simply ratified Mr. Gladstone’s schemes; but they were rendered memorable by Mr. J. S. Mill’s celebrated speech urging on the House the necessity of reducing the National Debt as a matter of duty to posterity. One of his chief arguments was based on the thesis of Mr. Stanley Jevons that succeeding generations must, at the existing rate of consumption, face a failure in the coal supply of the country owing to the exhaustion of its mines.[245]
Early in the year the Government obtained the consent of Parliament to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, in order to enable the Executive to deal with the Fenian conspiracy. Mr. Mill, however, though he supported the Ministry, very pertinently observed that, after it got fresh powers, it must not go asleep, as it had done for eighteen years, over Irish grievances. The Bill was passed on the 17th of February. The next step was to obtain the Queen’s assent immediately. As her Majesty was at Osborne, this took time, and the Irish Executive could not brook delay. As soon as the House of Lords had read the Bill a third time, a telegram was sent to Earl Granville, who was at Osborne, announcing the result, upon the receipt of which the Queen instantly signed the document authorising the Commissioners to give her assent to the measure. In order to allow time for bringing her authorisation to London, the sitting of the House of Lords was suspended until 11 o’clock p.m., when it was calculated that the special train with the Queen’s messenger would arrive in London. Time, however, rolled on, but no messenger appeared. The hour of midnight struck. Then the clock chimed the half-hour after twelve, when there entered a clerk bearing a despatch-box, which the Chancellor nervously opened and from which he took out the long-expected document. The House of Commons having been summoned, and about fifty members answering the call, at twenty minutes to one o’clock on the Sunday morning the Queen’s sanction was proclaimed, and the Bill became law. Probably no statute was ever passed with so much celerity as this Irish Coercion Bill—the first Act of the new Parliament. The powers of the Act had indeed been put into operation in anticipation of its passing, and on the 16th of February a large number of arrests were made in Dublin and its vicinity. The mischief done by the alarms of this period was, however, irretrievable, but, with the cessation of active movements on the part of the Fenians, a feeling of contempt for the conspiracy took the place of panic. For a few months, therefore, the country appeared to subside into its usual tranquillity.
On the 21st of March the Commissioners who had been investigating the negro outbreak in Jamaica finished their inquiry. The feeling in London was as violently in favour of repressive measures against the negroes, as it had been in favour of the Southerners during the American Civil War, and against the German Powers during the war in Sleswig-Holstein. It was therefore with some chagrin that the Party of Panic discovered that the Commissioners extenuated the action of the negroes. There had been a planned resistance to the Queen’s authority in Jamaica; but the chief cause was