Mill in effect combined the qualities of the historical and the critical schools of thought. His was not the vigorous hammering method of previous Liberals, but a cold, illuminating, and suggestive examination, which gave full credit to the existing institution, even while it displayed its defects. He asked, "How has it grown?" as earnestly as "How does it work?" and he lamented the indifference of his predecessors to history. "No one can calculate what struggles, which the cause of improvement has yet to undergo, might have been spared if the philosophers of the eighteenth century had done anything like justice to the past."[288] Every institution is to be studied historically, though it must be justified empirically. If it is bad in use, it must be reformed or abolished, but the change must be made along the line of past growth. What he said of the position of women he applied to every other problem. "The least that can be demanded is, that the question should not be considered as prejudged by existing fact and existing opinion, but open to discussion on its merits, as a question of justice and expediency; the decision on this, as on any of the other social arrangements of mankind, depending on what an enlightened estimate of tendencies and consequences may show to be most advantageous to humanity in general.... Through all the progressive period of human history, the condition of women has been approaching nearer to equality with men. This does not of itself prove that the assimilation must go on to complete equality, but it assuredly affords some presumption that such is the case."[289] This double view, combining the Radical view of Bentham with the historical view of Burke, enabled Mill to see his subject, as it were, stereoscopically and in true relation with its surroundings. He was not influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution. But his own work produced a very similar effect. It made men accustomed to the idea of continuous alteration, of future as well as past growth.
Mill was thus the most prominent thinker of a time in which old systems of thought were being undermined. Natural science and the higher criticism were breaking up the foundations of authority in religion, and Mill's general method of dealing with habits of thought, no less than the direct plea for free thinking and free speaking contained in his treatise on Liberty, gave a wider scope to honest scepticism. He expressed approval of some of the new Socialistic projects. He was in favour of compulsory education, of the regulation of hours of labour, of Trade Unionism and co-operation, and he looked forward to a time "when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made in concert on an acknowledged principle of justice." The social problem of the future, he said, would be "how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action with a common ownership of the new material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour."[290] His most original contribution to politics was his appeal for absolute equality of freedom for men and women, which was the first effective attempt to remove the class brand from women, and to abolish the aristocracy of sex. But his most valuable work, as has already been suggested, was not so much to sow new political ideas in the minds of his followers as to plough them for the reception of such ideas. He did not so much start them along new paths as set them to inquire whether they were right in remaining in the old, and whether there was any real danger in leaving them. As solvents of prejudice, Mill's works have not been surpassed by any. He promoted, not change, but the readiness to change; not Liberal measures, but Liberal-mindedness. Thus persuaded to refrain from hasty judgments upon opinions, and to accept every new idea upon its merits, the rising generation applied itself to the working of the improved political machine.
The Liberalism of the Government which was in power from 1868 to 1874 was displayed in the further application of old principles, no less than in the adoption of principles which were new. Religious equality was expressed in their Irish policy and in their treatment of education. Reforms in the Civil Service and the Army abolished more class distinctions in the public service. The new School Boards were another example of popular control of Government. Acts dealing with Trade Unions and the ownership of Irish land expressed the new theory of State interference with individual liberty, and Acts referring to women marked a great appreciation of them in comparison with men.
One old principle was the basis of the Ballot Act of 1872. This gave to dependent persons the power of voting freely in the choice of their representatives, without fear of landlords, employers, or customers. The project was as old as the agitation for manhood suffrage, and was first suggested in the days of Wilkes and the Society of the Friends of the Bill of Rights. Other impediments to individual freedom were removed in 1870, when all posts in the Civil Service, outside the Foreign Office, were opened to competitive examination; and in 1871, when the system of purchasing commissions in the Army was abolished. Two preserves of aristocracy and wealth were thus thrown open to the people at large. Direct aid was given to the poorer classes by the establishment of a national system of education in 1870. This had been first suggested by Whitbread, and gained the support of Bentham, the Whigs, and the Manchester School. Tories like Lord Shaftesbury had been in favour of it so long as nothing was done to limit the privileges of the Church, and there had been no reason, other than indifference, why the parsimonious grants out of the Exchequer should not have been increased long before. By this time the neglect of the poorer children and the complete failure of private enterprise had become conspicuous. Two million children received no education at all, one million received an education which was inadequate, and only one million three hundred thousand were educated in schools aided and inspected by the State.[291] The system was now made general, and the local control was placed in the hands of School Boards, elected by the ratepayers, and empowered to provide for the expenses of their districts by levying a rate.
The old Liberal principle of equality between sects, implied in the Irish Church Act, was expressed more simply in an Act of 1871, which abolished all theological tests for professors, fellows, tutors, and scholars of Oxford and Cambridge, except in the Theological Faculties. The exception was a characteristic revelation of Mr. Gladstone's influence. If absolute freedom of religious thinking is required more in one place than in another, it is in a school of divinity. But the Churchman was still involved in the Liberal Prime Minister, and the theological honours and offices were left to the dominant creed. The exception was not of much general importance, and the Act removed the principal disabilities which had fettered the mind of the Universities no less than they had hindered the education of Nonconformists. This Act was passed with little opposition, even from the Lords. The great conflict of religious principle took place over the Education Act, which, like most of its predecessors and successors, might have been more aptly styled the "Religious Difficulty in Schools Act." The problem was not educational at all. A substantial majority of all parties would have agreed upon a scheme of national secular education in a few hours. But the course of events had determined that the children's minds should appear less important to Parliament than their souls.
A logical Liberal, faced with the task of establishing a national system of education, could take only the course which was advocated by the Birmingham League. That was to make education free, compulsory, and secular. No one should pay for education except as a taxpayer, all should be compelled to send their children to school, and no form of religious opinion should be taught. This would have secured all the benefits of secular learning and discipline, without compelling the member of one sect to contribute to the propagation of the opinions of another, and without compelling a child to be instructed in opinions which were obnoxious to its parents. But it was impossible for logic to have its way. Schools had been established in some districts for many years. The majority taught the doctrines of the Establishment. Others were Wesleyan, others Unitarian, others Catholic, others Jewish. Most of these had already enjoyed State aid, though they had been built by voluntary subscription. It was impossible to ignore their existence. It was impossible also to ignore the fact that the majority of the English people, in a rough and ready way, desired that some sort of religion should be taught in the schools. There was no way out except in a compromise, and the difficulty thus acknowledged has never yet been removed. State aid was given to sectarian schools as well as Board Schools, and by the since famous Cowper Temple clause it was provided that no distinctive religious formulary should be taught in a Board School. This was not pure Liberalism. Nonconformists might object, as they had always objected, to paying for the propagation of obnoxious dogmas. Churchmen and Catholics might object, with equal reason, to paying for the propagation of opinions which were obnoxious because they contained no dogmas at all. Between the devil of dogma and the deep sea of Nonconformity no English Government has yet found a way. But the sects have had to live together in the country, and the compromise of 1870, though it settled nothing, was as good an arrangement as could have been made at the time.
The Education Act was an obvious interference of Government with absolute liberty, and the argument that this measure of control was only undertaken in order to equip the individual for the better enjoyment of liberty was an argument which would have applied to Socialism itself. But this Act was only a continuation of previous policy. The Trades Union Act of 1871 was a contrivance of an entirely new sort, and the support given to it by the Liberal Ministry meant a great change. Previous legislation had marked an alteration in the attitude of the State towards combinations of workmen, and the Act of 1871 carried the change a degree farther. The Acts of 1799 and 1800 had prohibited Trade Unions. The Acts of 1824 and 1825 had permitted them. The Act of 1871 protected them and gave them special privileges. This was the direct consequence of pressure by organized workmen, assisted by members of the middle class like Thomas Hughes and Frederic Harrison. Decisions of the judges had tended to cripple labour organizations by declaring strikes to be intimidation, and peaceful picketing a nuisance, and by holding that workmen acting in combination might be guilty of the crime of conspiracy, even though they did nothing which would have been a crime in the case of a single person. One decision had declared that a Trade Union, being an association in restraint of trade, was illegal, and that an official who embezzled its funds could not be sued by the Society.
These judicial attacks were only part of a campaign which was now being waged against the whole system of Trade Unionism. The workmen were beginning to make their strength felt, and the old legal dislike of interference with liberty joined with the less disinterested objections of employers to anything which interfered with their power to do as they liked with their capital and their labourers. Some serious outrages, committed by the smaller organizations of a few towns like Sheffield and Manchester, gave colour to the general indictment of combinations of this sort. As a matter of fact nothing stood between the most moral and responsible workmen and exploitation by the worse sort of masters but his Trade Union. Absolute freedom to sell his labour as he pleased meant for the ordinary workman absolute freedom to be abused by an economic superior. The Trade Union was the workman's only means of obtaining security of life. "Any one who regards it as a simple instrument to raise wages," wrote Mr. Frederic Harrison, "is, as Adam Smith says, 'as ignorant of the subject as of human nature.' Unionism, above all, aims at making regular, even, and safe the workman's life. No one who had not specially studied it would conceive the vast array of grievances against which Unionism and strikes are directed. If we looked only to that side of the question, we should come to fancy that from the whole field of labour there went up one universal protest against injustice. There is a 'miserable monotony' of wrong and suffering in it. Excessive labour, irregular labour, spasmodic overwork, spasmodic locking-out, 'overtime,' 'short time,' double time, night work, Sunday work, truck in every form, overlookers' extortion, payment in kind, wages reduced by drawbacks, 'long pays,' or wages held back, fines, confiscations, rent and implements irregularly stopped out of wages, evictions from tenements, 'black lists' of men, short weights, false reckoning, forfeits, children's labour, women's labour, unhealthy labour, deadly factories and processes, unguarded machinery, defective machinery, preventable accidents, recklessness from desire to save,—in countless ways we find a waste of human life, health, well-being, and power, which are not represented in the ledgers or allowed for in bargains."[292] In other words, the law, by a pedantic application of rules of abstract liberty, was depriving workmen of real liberty. Liberty of contract did not mean liberty of life, and it was only by sacrificing individual freedom to the common good in organization that real freedom was to be secured.
The Act of 1871 partly remedied the evil. Trade Unions, if there were nothing criminal in their expressed objects, were allowed to be registered, and could then enjoy the rights over their funds which were possessed by Friendly Societies. But they were given absolute freedom in their internal organization, and no action at law could be brought against them. These changes in the law were unfortunately almost nullified by a Criminal Law Amendment Act which practically gave statutory force to many of the recent legal decisions. Strikes were made legal, but everything done in pursuance of a strike was illegal, and working men and women were frequently imprisoned after 1871 for the most trivial acts, even while the serious boycotting of workpeople by employers was freely permitted. It is a great blot on the reputation of the Government, still dominated by the middle class and its dislike of combination, that it refused to complete the work which it had begun, and to enable Trade Unions not only to exist, but to work. At the General Election of 1874 two workmen, Alexander Macdonald and Thomas Burt, were actually elected to the House of Commons, and the roused feeling of the Unionists gained its object. The Conservative Home Secretary repealed the disabling Act, peaceful picketing was legalized, and workmen in combination were no longer punishable except for acts which were criminal if committed by single individuals. The strength gained by the Unions in this brief campaign finally established them in the industrial and political life of the country. The political reforms did not directly improve the condition of the working classes. But many, if not all, the improvements which subsequently took place, were only possible in the state of real freedom which the Acts of 1871 and 1874 had established.
One attempt to interfere with the absolute liberty of the individual failed. This was the Licensing Bill of 1871, which proposed to reduce the number of public-houses in the country. The departure from the old line was very marked. There had never been absolute freedom of trade in strong drink. From the earliest years alehouses had been licensed and supervised by magistrates. But their numbers in all parts of the country were more than was required for any reasonable consumption by the population. In Liverpool a disastrous experiment had been tried. Licences had been granted to every person of good character who chose to apply, on the assumption that unrestricted competition would lead to good management and the extinction of the worst class of house by competition. A principle which was abundantly successful in the cotton industry proved a helpless failure in the drink trade. There was no unhealthy demand for cotton goods. It did not depend on a natural instinct which might be increased by supply beyond the needs of health. To multiply drink-shops was to multiply, for many of the people who dealt with them, the temptations to demoralizing excess of consumption. The Liverpool experiment showed the folly of laissez faire in a matter of this sort. The Licensing Bill of 1871 expressed the opposite policy. It proposed to reduce the number of houses in each district to that which the justices thought was enough for its legitimate needs. The licences, though generally renewed, were granted for one year only. For ten years they were to be continued, subject to a small annual payment by the licensees. After the expiration of that period the justices were to fix the number for the district, and, in virtue of the artificial monopoly which the licences conferred, were to distribute them among such respectable persons as offered the highest prices. These proposals were as vigorous an interference with individual liberty as was consistent with existing rights. The holders of licences had no legal right to more than a year's profits from their licences. Custom had given them an expectancy of indefinite length. The public interest required that their numbers should be reduced. Reduction was therefore proposed, but after a substantial delay. The scheme was just in principle and generous in practice. But the extreme advocates of temperance legislation objected to its generosity, and the brewers and licensed victuallers objected to its justice. The Home Secretary, Mr. Bruce, was not strong enough to carry it. It was abandoned soon after its introduction, and a priceless opportunity of at once improving the conditions of town life and of subduing a powerful trade interest to the public was lost for ever.
The most difficult of the Ministry's problems was the Irish problem, and the most novel of its proposals were its Irish proposals. Judged by the degree of their success, these measures were perhaps not very important. At least, they did not settle the affairs of Ireland. But their spirit was of the greatest possible significance. This Liberal Government was the first English Government which ever set itself to legislate for Ireland according to Irish ideas, to recognize the essential differences between the two countries, to establish in Ireland what it would not maintain in England, and to destroy in Ireland those English institutions which had been erected by the egoism of its predecessors. The existing system was recognized as hopeless. In February, 1868, the Tory Government suspended the Habeas Corpus Act for the fourth time in two years. Fenianism was checked, but the disease of which it was a symptom was not cured. The Liberals endeavoured to go to the root of the matter. The maintenance of order was only a condition of further action, and the only possible further action was the redress of grievances.
The case of Ireland had for a long time caused anxiety to Liberal thinkers. In 1835 Cobden had contrasted England's readiness to sympathize with Poland and Greece with her complete indifference to the claims of Ireland. "Whilst our diplomatists, fleets, and armies have been put in motion at enormous cost, to carry our counsel, or, if needful, our arms, to the assistance of the people of these remote regions, it is an unquestionable fact, that the population of a great portion of our own Empire has, at the same time, presented a grosser spectacle of moral and physical debasement than is to be met with in the whole civilized world."[293] Disraeli in 1844 declared that it was the duty of an English Minister "To effect by his policy all those changes which a revolution would accomplish by force."[294] In 1847 Bright pointed to the root cause: "There is an unanimous admission now that the misfortunes of Ireland are connected with the question of the management of the land."[295] The rejection of Peel's Bill of 1845 has already been noticed. The only measure passed for the relief of Irish tenants since that date was the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849. This had provided State assistance for the sale of hopelessly mortgaged estates. Its chief result had been to substitute for a thriftless but easy-going gentry a company of grasping absentees, who rack-rented their tenants without mercy, where their predecessors had at any rate let them alone. The state of the Irish peasantry, even though the pressure of population had been greatly reduced by famine and emigration, was substantially worse in 1868 than it had been in 1845. The violence of Fenianism, murder and armed rescue at Manchester, and gunpowder plot at Clerkenwell, at last drew attention to a state of affairs in which there was nothing new except the degree of its badness.
Before the Liberals dealt with the land question, they turned their attention to the other great Irish grievance, the establishment of an alien Church. This was one of those matters of sentiment which, between conquering and conquered peoples, produce the most deadly and incurable animosities. The Irish Church had been established for the express purpose of prosecuting the English cause. It embodied and symbolized the alien domination. It perpetuated the memories of a thousand massacres and confiscations. In the language of John Bright, it was "a garrison Church ... the effect has been to make Catholicism in Ireland not only a faith, but absolutely a patriotism." Every clergyman "is necessarily in his district a symbol of the supremacy of the few and of the subjection of the many."[296] In its presence every Catholic Irishman felt himself a member of a conquered race, and every economic grievance was exaggerated. To invest the alien Church with the privileges of Establishment was to rub salt into the wounds of Ireland.
The Tories resisted the Liberal Bill partly on proprietary grounds. They treated a corporation, created for the propagation of certain opinions, a task in which it had conspicuously failed, as if it were a private person, and denounced disendowment as robbery. The Liberals contended that the State had endowed the Church, and that on the failure of the Church to provide for the spiritual needs of the Irish people, it was fair that the State should resume part of the property and apply it for other purposes. But the details of disendowment are hardly material. The essence of the Bill was that it tended to destroy the ascendancy of Protestantism as against Catholicism, and of Englishmen as against Irishmen. Gathorne Hardy put the Tory case on this point in one sentence. He said that he looked upon the Church "as a part of the Imperial Government."[297] Sergeant Dowse stated the Liberal case in reply. "The Irish people regarded that Church as a great wrong and a standing memorial of conquest.... Nobody ever said the measure would lead to social equality. But in future a Bishop or Dean would no longer be preferred over a Bishop or Dean of the Catholic or minister of the Presbyterian Church, and in that way, at least, an important removal of social distinctions would be effected." He reminded his hearers that on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne orange flags were hoisted on the spires of State churches, and described them as "the badge of degradation to the vast majority of the Irish people. Protestant ascendancy did exist, as long as one Church was patronized and preferred above another Church either of the whole or a portion of the people."[298] The Bill was carried into law after a hard fight with the House of Lords. It did not entirely destroy the insolence of Irish Protestants or allay all the discontents of the peasantry. But it was an earnest of the disposition of an English Government to legislate for the Irish people as they would have legislated for themselves.
The sentimental grievance having been removed, the Liberals turned to the practical grievance. The Irish Land Act of 1870 provided that the tenant should receive compensation for his improvements, and unless the contrary were proved, it was to be presumed that all improvements were his, and not the landlord's. If a tenant were evicted, he was to be compensated for disturbance, unless the eviction were for non-payment of rent, and even then the court might hold that the exorbitant amount demanded, or other circumstances, entitled him to special compensation. No tenant who paid less than £50 a year could contract out of the Act. Two great principles were expressed in this measure. The first was that of the Church Act, the Irish government of Ireland. The second was the new collectivism. The Act not only alleviated the great hardship of the Irish tenants, it was a direct interference by the State with the right of property and with freedom of contract. The absolute owner of land was no longer allowed to deal with it as he pleased without compensating those to whom he leased it, and a poor tenant was expressly prevented from agreeing to his own injury. Utilitarianism and laissez faire had ceased to dominate the Liberal mind, and liberty was deliberately restricted in one direction that it might expand more readily in another. Where one party was rich and the other poor, where one held land in his absolute disposition and the other could not live without it, freedom of bargaining meant the lessening of liberty. This principle, suggested in the Factory Acts, and first openly applied to the problem of Irish land, is now the distinctive character of Liberal domestic policy.
A phenomenon of this period as remarkable as the appearance of Socialistic ideas is the direction of the attention of Parliament to the affairs of women. One or two Acts had dealt with the condition of working women as with that of working children, and they had been excluded altogether from the brutalizing labour of mines. But the general status of the sex, as compared with that of men, had remained unaltered since the accession of George III. Beneath the surface of politics a substantial improvement had taken place. The first condition of emancipation was that women themselves should be enabled to demand it. The carefully fostered ignorance of the eighteenth century was now being gradually reduced by improvements in education. The vast majority of middle-class women still received a mental training which was infinitely inferior to that of men. But a few schools, of which those of Miss Buss in North London and Miss Dorothea Beale at Cheltenham were the most conspicuous, had begun to substitute a scientific training of the mind for the futile cultivation of graces and accomplishments. Bedford College and Queen's College in London provided similar training for girls who had passed the school age, and in 1870 the first women's college at Cambridge was established by Anne Jemima Clough. A few books had been published by women, who claimed the same freedom of development for the individual woman as all Liberals required for the individual man. The public distinctions of women like George Eliot, the Brontës, Mary Somerville, Harriet Martineau, and Florence Nightingale had accustomed society to the idea of vigorous female independence. Elizabeth Blackwell and Elizabeth Garrett had already contrived to squeeze themselves, in the face of every kind of opposition, into the medical profession, and soon after the Liberal victory of 1868 Sophia Jex-Blake began that extraordinary struggle at Edinburgh which at last ended in the defeat of male jealousy and the admission of women to medical schools and medical degrees. In all directions women of the middle class were beginning to assert their right to develop their own faculties and to employ their own powers according to their own ideas of what was right and fitting, and not according to those of the dominant sex.
This movement among women was only part of the general movement towards individual freedom from external control which is described in these pages. The ruling sex was as little capable of understanding the part as the Tory of the French Revolution had been of understanding the whole. But the real Liberal had no difficulty in discovering and in comprehending the movement of women, and the most conspicuous Liberal thinker of the time attacked sexual Toryism as he attacked the Toryism of class or creed. Mill's Subjection of Women, published in 1869, applied to the condition of women precisely those arguments which, in other works, he applied to that of men. The question must be studied with an open mind, and not subject to a priori assumptions. Why should it be presumed that dependence and feebleness of mind were natural to women? Why should it be presumed that it was natural that men should regulate even the private lives of women? Why should it be presumed that a woman was naturally incapable of managing her own affairs? These propositions, which had perhaps been true in a barbarous society, could only be proved in a state of civilization by reason and argument. Until women had had some opportunity of exerting their natural powers in a state of independence, it was absurd to argue that those natural powers were not equal to independence. An arbitrary standard, convenient to the interest of the dominant sex, had been erected for women, and they had been carefully trained up to it. Delicacy of mind and body, diffidence and self-effacement, superficial and unscientific learning had been required of them, and it was not surprising that they had very rarely attained to anything stronger. It was absurd to argue that women were naturally incapable of intellectual exertion, of professional skill, or of taking part in public affairs, when the whole scheme of their education had been contrived to make them so incapable. The supposed weaknesses are at best exaggerated by education, and it was not improbable that they had been created by it. When everything possible had been done by artificial means to strengthen their minds and bodies, we might be able to form some accurate judgment of what their powers were. In any case, we had no right to enforce a general mode of life upon all women, irrespective of their individual variations. We no longer branded men with class marks, and reserved special occupations and dignities for special groups. Why should we persist in maintaining the same system for women? If there was only one woman in England who was capable of practising as a doctor, it was her right as an individual to be allowed to practise, and the incapacity of every other of her sex was no reason for depriving her of her opportunity of working out her own life. Every kind of school and college, every occupation and profession, should be thrown open, and women should be permitted, as men were permitted, each to find her own place, according to her own natural capacity.
This was the ordinary argument of Liberalism, a plea for the substitution of individual opportunity for class regulation. Mill went farther, as every Liberal is bound to go, and claimed for women the same right to control their own government as that which he claimed for men. During the debates on the Reform Bill of 1867 he actually moved an amendment providing for the enfranchisement of women on the same terms as men. The respect with which the House listened to his speech was accorded to the speaker rather than to his argument, and it is only in very recent years that the opposition to Woman Suffrage has ceased to be largely frivolous and even obscene. In Mill's day the force outside Parliament was very weak, and it was impossible that his proposals should succeed. Even among the middle and upper classes only one woman in ten received a scientific mental training, and many of the best educated were so far removed by circumstances from all personal hardships that their sense of the common grievance was slight. But the movement which Mill thus brought to the surface of politics was essentially part of the great tide of individual emancipation which had been flowing since the French Revolution, and pioneers like Lydia Becker were already struggling with prejudice and prudery with some success. Women were beginning to refuse, as Catholics, Dissenters, and workmen had refused, to be treated in the State as a branded class. If the domination of one class of men over another class of men had led to abuse, did not the domination of one sex over another also lead to abuse? The deliberate stunting of the female mind in education,[299] the exclusion of women from the Universities and the professions, the gross inequalities sanctioned by the new Divorce Act, the barbarity which stripped the wife on marriage of all her property and even of the earnings of her own labour, and reduced her to absolute physical and mental dependence upon her husband, all this was the direct or indirect consequence of the political domination of the male sex. Those who disposed of women in the State, disposed of them also in the schools, in industry, and in the family. With excess of logic, the early Woman Suffragists even opposed the restriction of women's labour by Factory Acts as if every such interference had been inspired by male jealousy.
Most barbarous of all the grievances of women were the legal and conventional rules which affected the moral relations of the sexes. In nothing had the egoism of men been so remarkably displayed as in the construction of these rules, and in the care with which they had concealed the consequences from women. The progress of the movement in favour of Woman Suffrage is precisely to be measured by the growth of women's knowledge of the facts of sex, and in particular of the meaning of prostitution. The general conspiracy of silence was at last being broken up, and the new women were turning their new eyes upon the old facts. It was at this time still common for medical men to recommend the practice of vice to their men patients, and the practice of vice was an easy thing. A child of thirteen might legally "consent" to her own dishonour, and the man who used her for his pleasure could not be punished as a criminal. It was a crime to abduct a young girl for the purpose of marrying her and so getting control of her property. But it was not a crime to abduct her for the purpose of keeping her in a brothel. It was a crime to keep a brothel. But it was a crime because it was a nuisance to the public, not because it meant the systematic degradation of women and girls. Their knowledge that the law sanctioned, and that so much of male opinion encouraged, the abuse of their sex for the indulgence of their political superiors was enough in itself to direct the attention of earnest women to politics. But these grievances were of ancient growth, and it might reasonably be pleaded that ignorance and want of imagination alone prevented their remedy. A new expression of the same disposing habit of mind showed that it had lost nothing of its old vigour.
The subject of the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1866 and 1869 is dreadful to contemplate and to describe. But its significance is so immense, and its neglect by all ordinary historians is so marked, that it must be treated in this book. The conflict between the disposing and the sympathetic minds, between the blind and largely unconscious egoism of a governing class and the interest of its depreciated subjects, has never been elsewhere so terribly illustrated. Prostitution has always been regarded by a male society either as a danger or as a convenience. By such women as have known of its existence it has been more justly considered as an example of heartless oppression and abuse. Only a minority of the women who engage in it are there out of their own choice. The great bulk of this trade, which is now not improperly described as the White Slave Traffic, is supplied by unwilling victims. They are entrapped in childhood, or in early youth, they are corrupted by bad housing and overcrowding, they are betrayed by seducers, or they are driven by starvation wages to earn their living on the streets. Their condition is the most wretched of any people in the world. No other trade is so dangerous to those who are employed in it, or so quickly uses up their lives. No other trade so swiftly devours in its workpeople those noble qualities of the mind which would enable them to support the heaviest physical burdens. In prostitution everything is sooner or later destroyed that most adorns body, mind, and soul.
For the victims of this traffic in flesh the Legislature had for long provided nothing but fine and imprisonment, methods which were as useless to deter the minority which was corrupt as they were powerless to save the majority which was unfortunate. The Liberal could adopt only one course, to attack the causes at their roots, to amend Statutes like the Divorce Act, which sanctioned vice in men, to protect young girls by raising the age of consent, and to impose penalties on those who exploited them, to improve the conditions of housing and labour, and to raise wages. The Government which was left in power by Palmerston, seeing prostitution only with male eyes, made a fatal error. They set themselves, not to make prostitution difficult for women, but to make it safe for men. The diseases produced by vice were seriously injuring the health of the Army and Navy. The Government did not attempt, as its successors have attempted, to reduce the practice of vice among their servants. They took the easier course of recognizing and regulating what they thought they could not check. By the Act of 1866, amended by the Act of 1869, they compelled the unfortunate women in garrison towns to submit themselves periodically to medical examination. The healthy were discharged. The diseased were compulsorily detained in hospitals until they were cured, when they also were released to continue the practice of their trade. The soldiers and sailors were implicitly told that if they were careful to select one of these Government women they could be vicious with impunity. The climax of the system was reached in 1885, when the Commander-in-Chief in India instructed his commanding officers to see that plenty of good-looking girls were provided for their men, and that they had all proper facilities for practising their trade.
Of the foul barbarity of this contrivance of the Legislature it is difficult to write with moderation, even at this distance of time. It is not suggested here that the majority of the men who were responsible were animated by vicious motives. It was only another example of unimaginative dullness legislating without responsibility. But the effect of deliberate wickedness could not have been worse. The wretched were confirmed in wretchedness. The degraded were thrust farther into the depths of degradation. Thousands of human beings of the subject class, originally guilty of nothing worse than poverty or a youthful lapse from principle, were placed by the State at the disposal of the governing class for the foulest purpose. It is a most vivid illustration of the rarity of complete Liberalism, that the Contagious Diseases Acts remained on the Statute Book for seventeen years, and that if they were in the first place smuggled through Parliament, they were afterwards defended by men of all parties alike.
A few politicians like James Stansfeld fought steadily in Parliament. But the Parliamentary machine is so constructed, that when parties are divided public causes fall to the ground. In this case, as in that of the repeal of the Corn Laws, reform came by way of a struggle outside the walls of the Legislature. Mrs. Josephine Butler was the leader of the agitation. Seventeen years of fighting against vested interests, against the medical profession and the Army, against indifference, against active and persecuting prudery, and against physical violence were required, and the victory was not completed till 1886. But this long agony was of enormous historical importance. It not only achieved its immediate object, the repeal of the Acts and the further result of the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885; its indirect effects were infinite. It was the first organized effort on the part of women in their own political interest. It extended to other parts of the world. It taught women, irrespective of class and race, the value of solidarity. It stimulated the demand for education, for better moral standards, for the franchise, for everything which would enable women to control their own lives and to take themselves out of the disposition of men. It was in fact the greatest single stimulus to that vast social movement for the emancipation of women which is to-day visible in every part of the world. No one can understand the modern demand for Woman Suffrage who does not realize that the driving force behind it is the increasing knowledge of prostitution which has sprung from Mrs. Butler's agitation. Rightly or wrongly, the Suffragists believe that political domination involves moral domination, and that involuntary prostitution will exist so long as the regulation of women's political affairs rests in the hands of men.
The Contagious Diseases Acts represented the extreme abuse of the male ego. But the Liberal Government of 1868, which actually passed the second of the two Acts, did not a little in other ways to improve the condition of women. The Married Women's Property Act of 1870 protected the wife's earnings against her husband, and permitted her to enjoy, for her own use, property which she had acquired by inheritance. The Education Act of 1870 permitted women to be elected as members of the new School Boards, and an Act of 1875 admitted them also to Boards of Guardians. These three Acts marked a substantial rise in the social scale. They affected chiefly women of the richer classes. But the admissions which they implied were of indefinite extent. Society had begun to look at the individual within the family as it had begun to look at the individual within the class or sect. The wife was acknowledged to be a separate individual from her husband, and the presence of women on public bodies was a sufficient answer to the argument that women should be confined to those duties which they could only perform in association with men. Marriage had ceased to be the sole object of a decent woman's life. In spite of the monstrous injustice of the Contagious Diseases Acts, woman was being placed in Society, in some measure at least, in accordance with her own worth, and not with the assumptions of male egoism.
The foreign policy of the Government was conspicuously Liberal, and it was justified by its results. Liberty was maintained and moral rules were enforced without Palmerston's recklessness, and there were none of the acts of petty bullying with which he had varied his tilting at tyrants. The general outline of the new policy is contained in a memorandum addressed by Mr. Gladstone to the Queen in 1871. He stated its principles to be "That England should keep entire in her own hands the means of estimating her own obligations upon the various states of facts as they arise; that she should not foreclose and narrow her own liberty of choice, by declarations made to other powers, in their real or supported interests, of which they would claim to be joint interpreters; that it is dangerous for her to assume alone an advanced, and therefore an isolated, position, in regard to European controversies; that, come what may, it is better for her to promise too little than too much; that she should not encourage the weak by giving expectations of aid to resist the strong, but should rather seek to deter the strong, by firm but moderate language, from aggression on the weak; that she should seek to develop and mature the action of a common, or public, or European opinion, as the best standing bulwark against wrong, but should beware of seeming to lay down the law of that opinion by her own authority, and thus running the risk of setting against her, and against right and justice, that general sentiment which ought to be, and generally would be, arrayed in their favour. I am persuaded that opinions of this colour are the only opinions which the country is disposed to approve. But I do not believe that on that account it is one whit less disposed than it has been at any time, to cast in its lot upon any fitting occasion with the cause it believes to be right."[300]
This is a sort of middle between Palmerstonism and Cobdenism. It repudiates the balance of power. It condemns isolated, single-handed war on behalf of weak nations against strong, and emphasizes the necessity of international co-operation. But it lays down no general rule of non-interference, it justifies diplomatic protest against the immoral treatment of one nation by another, and it admits that war may sometimes be right and necessary, even when no specifically British interest is directly involved.[301] It is probably as nearly a precise definition of Liberal policy as could be made in connection with a matter where precision is extremely difficult.
Ministers were more than once severely tested during their term of office. Lord Clarendon, the Foreign Secretary, made some attempt to suggest a general reduction of armaments. The British forces had been considerably diminished by the withdrawal of troops from the self-governing Colonies, and expenditure on both the war services had been cut down. Lord Clarendon's tentative advances were at least disinterested. He approached the French Emperor and Bismarck. Each waited for the other to begin, and on the 15th July, 1870, six months after the proposals were made, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War supplied a tragically ironic comment on their futility. The British Government suggested mediation, but without success, and in another six months France was at the feet of her enemies. Sir Henry Bulwer, an old subordinate of Palmerston, was the only responsible statesman who suggested intervention on her behalf.[302] The quarrel was her own. If Bismarck had been dishonest, Napoleon III had been little better, and the French people had been as eager for war as the German. Ministers had no difficulty in maintaining a strict neutrality.
On two controversies arising out of the war they showed themselves as prompt and as resolute as any one could have wished. In order to prejudice France in the eyes of Europe, Bismarck published some proposals which the French Emperor had made to the King of Prussia a few years before for the annexation of Belgium to France. The independence of Belgium had been guaranteed by England, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia in 1839, and this plan was as immoral in itself as it was dangerous to the peace of Europe. It was suggested that England was not concerned single-handed to enforce a treaty to which other Powers were parties. Gladstone was determined at least to attempt it. An ingenious treaty was contrived between Great Britain and the two belligerents, by which either France or Germany was to go to war in alliance with Great Britain, if the independence of Belgium was violated by the other. The House of Commons voted two millions of money and approved of an increase of the forces by 20,000 men. The treaty and the Parliamentary votes were sufficient proofs of the determination of the Government to defend the Belgians, and no hostile army set foot upon their soil. This was an intervention in a good cause, made without bluster, and it was justified by success.
The second occasion for strong action was a similar violation of an international agreement. By the treaty of Paris, which ended the Crimean War, Russia and Turkey had agreed to place no ships of war upon the Black Sea. This was a futile interference with what might almost be called the domestic concerns of the two countries, in an inland sea which was entirely surrounded by their own territories. But such as it was, it was made binding in most solemn terms. Russia could have obtained a release by diplomatic means without any difficulty. She preferred, in the crisis of the Franco-Prussian War, to announce that she intended to be no longer bounded by this restriction. This was an impudent breach of her engagement, made possible only by the difficulties of her associates. The English Government acted again with vigour and directness. Lord Granville[303] wrote to the British Ambassador at Petersburg in language which was really that of Gladstone: "It is quite evident that the effect of such doctrine, and of any proceeding which, with or without avowal, is founded upon it, is to bring the entire authority and efficacy of treaties under the discretionary control of each one of the Powers who may have signed them, the result of which would be the entire destruction of treaties in their essence."[304] Mr. Odo Russell got the support of Prussia by saying that England would fight, even if she had no allies,[305] and a conference in London resolved formally that no single nation could arrogate to itself the power of dispensing with a treaty. The obnoxious clause in the Treaty of Paris was then repealed. Here again the readiness to use force in support of moral rules was successful.
A third occasion for intervention arose when Germany required France to cede the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Gladstone wished to procure a European protest against this transfer of territory without the assent of the inhabitants. "My opinion certainly is that the transfer of territory and inhabitants by mere force calls for the reprobation of Europe, and that Europe is entitled to utter it with good effect."[306] He did not suggest that England should step in single-handed, in the manner of Palmerston. It was Europe's duty as it was Europe's interest. "A matter of this kind cannot be regarded as in principle a question between the two belligerents only, but involves considerations of legitimate interest to all the Powers of Europe. It appears to bear on the Belgian question in particular. It is also a principle likely to be of great consequence in the eventual settlement of the Eastern question."[307] He apprehended "that this violent laceration and transfer is to lead us from bad to worse, and to be the beginning of a new series of European complications."[308] He was perfectly right. His aim could only be secured with the assistance of the neutral Powers, and the greatest of these had just shown how little she regarded rules of morality and the public opinion of Europe. Bismarck had indeed begun a new era, and the theory of compensation was being substituted for the theory of obligation. It was no longer "I keep my word, therefore you must keep yours," but "I will acquiesce in your breaking your word, if you will allow me to break mine." Gladstone's attempt to maintain the better system was prevented by his Cabinet, and with Russia imitating German contempt for morality, it was probably the wisest course to do nothing.
After these two demonstrations of their readiness to enforce moral rules where the circumstances required it, the Government showed that they were equally ready to observe moral rules even against their own material interest. The American Civil War had left them the onerous legacy of the Alabama claims. The Alabama was a privateer, which Palmerston and Russell, in spite of the protests of the American Ambassador, had allowed to sail from Birkenhead. In the service of the Confederate Government, she had inflicted great damage upon the shipping of the North, and after the conclusion of the war the American Government had claimed that the British Government should pay compensation for the consequences of their negligence. Their case was spoilt by the impudent inclusion of claims for remote injuries, including the whole cost of the war after the last defeat of the Confederate army in the field.[309] Palmerston and Lord John Russell had steadily refused to admit liability. Gladstone and Lord Granville had more wisdom and more real courage. The whole case was submitted to a Court of Arbitration at Geneva composed of representatives of the two disputants, Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil. Great Britain was held to be responsible, and damages were awarded. The American claims for direct injury were nine and a half millions. The award was for three and a quarter. This was perhaps the greatest act of the Government. For the first time in history, a great State, instead of asserting its claims by force, had agreed to be bound by the decision of an impartial tribunal, and had paid damages for its wrong-doing as if it had been a private person in a court of law. The cause of international morality advances slowly, and reaction is frequent and universal. But the disposition to subdue egoism to the common interest and to subordinate national vanity to moral rules grows steadily on the whole. The first important step in advance was made by the Liberal Government which submitted to the arbitration at Geneva.
The history of the Disraeli Ministry which in 1874 followed that of Gladstone is almost entirely a history of foreign policy. The new Premier had described the domestic activity of his predecessor as a policy of plundering and blundering, and he himself avoided the imputation of either form of error by doing little of any significance at home. In effect he revived the system of Palmerston, and endeavoured to distract the popular attention from domestic grievances by splendid demonstrations abroad. One or two useful Liberal measures, besides the Employers and Workmen Act, were passed into law. An Artisans Dwellings Act empowered municipal corporations to acquire land by compulsory purchase, for the erection of workmen's houses. This was an entirely wise application of the new collectivist principles, and a belated individualist was discovered in Mr. Fawcett, who opposed the Bill, on strictly logical grounds, as "class legislation." The same argument would abolish the Poor Law. Another measure of great utility was forced on the Government by Plimsoll, a Liberal philanthropist. It provided for the inspection and detention of unseaworthy ships, and was a notable example of interference with private property and freedom of contract in the interest of a class of adult men. A third reform of a Liberal kind was due to Parnell, the new leader of the Irish Nationalists, who amended the Prison Bill of 1877 by inserting a clause that persons guilty of seditious libel should be treated as first-class misdemeanants and not as common criminals. This was the high-water mark of the reaction from the eighteenth-century treatment of political criticism. In 1777 an honest Republican might have been treated as a felon. Since 1877 allowance has been made for the motives even of the advocate of Revolution. Even the law shows respect for the right of the common man to censure his governors. A last Liberal measure was the Act of 1878, which enabled Universities to confer medical degrees upon women. These Acts were substantially all the important domestic legislation of the Ministry.
While thus abstaining from activity at home, Disraeli gratified his instinct for magnificence abroad, and sacrificed morality and interest on the altar of prestige. One bold stroke was to buy from the Khedive of Egypt his shares in the Suez Canal. This feat was not so splendid as it was claimed to be. It gave England no additional hold over the route to India, which, in time of war, can only be maintained by the fleet, whether the Canal is English or Egyptian. But it gave England a deciding voice in the management of a neutral waterway, and prevented it from falling into the hands of other and less altruistic Powers. This action at least did no harm. The other proceedings of the Government were almost uniformly disgraceful, and most disgraceful where they were most pretentious. In the Balkans and in Afghanistan they were guilty of conduct which was at once vainglorious, unsuccessful, and wrong, and neither in objects, nor methods, nor results was there anything worthy of credit. The first of these shabby performances took place in the Near East, where they adopted Palmerston's policy of protecting Turkey without any of his excuse. It could be urged in favour of the Crimean War that it was undertaken to enable the Turks to set their house in order, and a firm belief in the possibility of that regeneration might justify an honest man in supporting Turkey against Russia. Palmerston retained that belief until his death. At the time of Disraeli's accession it could not have existed in the mind of any reasonable being. After twenty years, Turkish Government of subject Christian races remained what it had always been, and in 1876 a just and necessary revolt in Bulgaria was suppressed with the usual Turkish incidents of massacre, burning alive, rape, torture, and destruction of property. Gladstone was inspired to a passionate demand for armed intervention, and the British peoples have never been so deeply stirred as by his pamphlet to ignore the distinctions of party, class, and creed. Disraeli treated the news of outrage with characteristic flippancy, and talked airily of "coffee-house babble," even when Lord Derby, his Foreign Secretary, was instructing the British Ambassador at Constantinople to protest against the atrocities of the Turkish agents. The responsibility of Great Britain could not be questioned. We had taken Turkey under our protection twenty years before, to serve our private ends, and as we had helped to maintain the system of government, so we were entitled to denounce its abuse. There was indeed only one step for an honourable and courageous people to take, to confess our error and to confine Turkish sovereignty to Turkish people. There was no question of single-handed action. Russia, Austria, and Germany agreed, in the Berlin Memorandum, to require the Sultan to reform his government, and France and Italy concurred. Great Britain refused to join the others, on the ground that she had not been consulted from the first. This policy had but one motive, distrust of Russia; it had but one consequence, the encouragement of Turkey. The joint Memorandum was ineffective, and in the face of Anglo-Russian jealousy, the Sultan snapped his fingers at suggestions of reform.
The climax was reached when Great Britain refused to join Russia in a naval demonstration in the Bosphorus. The Tsar then declared that he would act alone, and gave the British Ambassador his word of honour that he had no intention of annexing any part of the Turkish dominions or of permanently occupying Constantinople. On the lips of the Tsar Nicholas of the Crimean War such a pledge might have meant little. On the lips of the Tsar Alexander, a genuine Liberal, who had emancipated the serfs and given his subjects, for the first time in their history, courts of law in place of bureaucratic caprice, it meant very much. Nothing is more certain than that the Tsar was honest in his professions, and that he was impelled by a disinterested wave of enthusiasm among his subjects. The Balkan question is the one question on which a Russian Government always expresses the opinions of the Russian people. But even if the Tsar had been dishonest, and if England had been placed in a real dilemma, it was entirely England's fault. The Tory Government, by refusing to act in concert with the other Powers, had left only two alternatives possible to Russia: to do nothing, or to interfere single-handed. When she showed signs of adopting the second, Disraeli at the Lord Mayor's Banquet made ominous references to war. Everything was done by the Tory Press to inflame the popular mind against Russia, and to divert attention from the real issue. Even the Liberal Opposition was distracted, and in Parliament Mr. Gladstone maintained his straight and courageous course almost without a helper.[310] When the Russians had crossed the border, and, after an astonishingly successful resistance by the Turks, were actually approaching Constantinople, the balance of English opinion swung against them, and the Government openly prepared for war.[311] The music-halls rallied to their support, the name of Jingo was invented, and Gladstone's windows were broken by the mob. But the conclusion of peace by the Treaty of San Stefano ended the war between Turkey and Russia and prevented the war between Russia and Great Britain. The Tory Government was saved, by no fault of its own, from a moral disaster which no material successes could have effaced. During the negotiations which followed the Treaty they made full use of the dangerous temper which they had aroused.
The terms of the Treaty gave them an opportunity of enforcing a Liberal principle, and for the first time Russia made a false step. The treaty gave Russia a small indemnity and a little territory. Bulgaria was made an independent principality, and the Turks, as Gladstone had demanded, "one and all, bag and baggage, cleared out from the province they had desolated and profaned." Russia had done single-handed what it should have been the duty and the pride of England to help her to do. But the treaty, as it stood, was as much an infraction of the Treaty of Paris as the placing of armed ships upon the Black Sea, and the British Government very properly required an international agreement. Russia at first refused, and if this difficult situation had not been the direct result of their own unprincipled conduct, the British Government would have had a very good excuse for war. A disaster was once more imminent, and Lord Derby finally resigned. He was succeeded by Lord Cranborne,[312] and the Tory Press once more fanned the flames of national hatred.
But Disraeli was above all things a contriver of effects, and while his followers applauded his firmness and resolution in maintaining the Treaty of Paris, he was privately engaged in pulling it to pieces. He made a secret treaty with Russia, agreeing to support her at the international conference in asking substantially for what she had obtained by the Treaty of San Stefano. He then proceeded with great solemnity to Berlin, after having apparently humiliated his adversary, and Russia obtained what she wanted without difficulty. The Treaty of Berlin made few alterations in the Treaty of San Stefano, and the most important was unquestionably for the worse. The extent of the New Bulgaria was reduced, and it was divided into two provinces, which a few years later joined together to form the present State. The reduction was effected by the restoration of Macedonia to Turkey, and as these words are being written that unhappy district, after another generation of distress, has become the cause of another Balkan war. The policy of Disraeli was for the time as popular as that of Palmerston had ever been. Surveyed after thirty-five years, it appears to have consisted in encouraging Turkey to fight in defence of an iniquitous system of government, and, after nearly involving the British people in a war for a vile cause, in forcing the inhabitants of Macedonia to suffer for another generation at the hands of their unregenerate oppressors. Through this policy, for the last thirty years the Macedonian peasant, setting out in the morning for the fields, has not known that on his return in the evening he would not find his house burnt to the ground and his wife dishonoured. Through this policy, the bloody issue of the Balkans has now been settled for the second time by a savage and destructive war. The transaction, so selfish in its origin, so shameless in its methods, and so horrible in its consequences, is generally described by admirers of Beaconsfield in his own words, as his achievement of "Peace with Honour."[313]
The next scene for the display of this reckless and improvident system was Afghanistan. The Viceroy of India was Lord Lytton, whose strong character was expressed in a wise and vigorous conduct of domestic affairs, and a conduct of foreign affairs which was only vigorous. His attention was directed, soon after the Balkan difficulty began, to Central Asia. In that quarter Russia, following her usual habit of advancing in Asia whenever she was repulsed in Europe, had come into touch with the Afghans. The policy of the Gladstone Government, in similar circumstances, had always been to negotiate directly with Russia, and they had steadily refused to use other peoples as tools of their diplomacy. This was not merely a moral, it was also a wise rule of conduct. Just as strong and independent Balkan States were better barriers against Russia than a corrupt and enfeebled Turkey, so the best bulwarks of India were native tribes who had no reason to fear British aggression, and every reason to believe that she would protect them against the encroachments of other States. The policy of Liberalism coincided with that of almost every Indian statesman of experience. Everything had been done, in past times, to avoid the appearance of dictating to the small peoples beyond the frontier. "Surround India," wrote Lord Lytton's predecessor, "with strong, friendly, and independent states, who will have more interest in keeping well with us than with any other Power."[314]
This was the policy of wisdom. Lord Lytton and his Home Government preferred to adopt the other policy, and to make the Amir of Afghanistan a pawn in their game with Russia. "A tool in the hands of Russia I will never allow him to become. Such a tool it would be my duty to break before it could be used."[315] In other words, the Amir was to put himself into the hands of England in order that he might be unable to put himself in the hands of Russia. He was requested to receive a British Envoy in terms which would have been more properly addressed to an open enemy than to an ally, and from the first Lord Lytton adopted a tone which did nothing to conciliate and everything to disturb a race who are, beyond almost all others, suspicious of foreign interference. The result was that Shere Ali was driven into the arms of Russia, whose manners were better if her aims were not less selfish than those of the British Viceroy. Russia was not reluctant to embarrass England in Central Asia, and the Bulgarian dispute was followed by the despatch of a Russian mission to Kabul. The Amir objected, but was powerless. The Russian representative soon left the country, but not before his object, the provocation of the Viceroy, had been achieved. Lord Lytton retaliated by sending an envoy of his own, who was turned back at the Kyber Pass. War began in November, 1878, and the Parliamentary parties were divided more sharply than by the threatened war with Russia.
Gladstone was on this occasion supported by all the Liberal Opposition, and in the House of Lords, Lord Lawrence, one of the greatest Englishmen who had ever governed in India, was on the same side.[316] Liberal principles had been offended in more than one way. The Viceroy had bullied Afghanistan as Palmerston had bullied China. He had attempted to interfere with her independence. He had endeavoured to repair the blunders of his diplomacy by war, and to supply his own deficiency of wisdom by brute force. If he had had any real cause of quarrel it was with Russia, and he had used Afghanistan simply as an unwilling means to an end of his own, on account of transactions in which she had had no freedom and no responsibility. "Having a cause of complaint against the strong," said Whitbread, "they fixed the quarrel on the weak; and they have brought us to a war, in which already gallant men's lives have been lost, and homes made desolate, to atone for the blunders and errors of their administration."[317] Mr. Chamberlain, the rising hope of the uncompromising Radicals, reiterated those general principles which are familiar to all who have read the debates on the China War in 1860. "Is it sufficient to call a man a barbarian in order to discharge oneself of all obligations to treat him with common fairness and consideration?... Only admit that a country has to follow the law of self-preservation without reference to others, and it is evidently a justification for an attack, say of France upon Belgium, or Germany upon Holland, or the absorption of Canada by the United States, and this deliberate attempt to substitute might for right in dealing with Indian Princes, and the law of force for the law of nations, is certain, in my opinion, to have a most disastrous effect upon the true foundations of our Indian Empire."[318]
Force triumphed, for the time, over morals. But retribution came with more than its usual swiftness. The Afghans were beaten in the field. Shere Ali disappeared, and his son Yakúb Khan took his place. Lord Lytton had distrusted the father, who was no worse than weak. He confided in the son, who was thoroughly bad. Major Cavagnari entered Kabul as British Envoy on the 24th of July, 1879. On the 3rd of September he was murdered with all his people. A second war was undertaken, more lives were lost, and the Government actually proposed to partition Afghanistan, and to incorporate the eastern part in the Indian Empire. This course could have produced only three consequences. Free Afghanistan would have been thrust into the arms of Russia. British Afghanistan would have been in a perpetual condition of unrest. Our military responsibilities would have been extended beyond the natural barrier of the great mountains at the same time that they would have been indefinitely increased by the direct contact with the Russian frontier. Entangled in difficult passes, and surrounded by unfriendly hill tribes, our troops would have been infinitely less formidable to Russia than in the plains of India. The General Election of 1880 extricated Great Britain from this dangerous folly, and the new Government evacuated Afghanistan and abandoned the project of a British Envoy at Kabul. From that day to this the Afghans have been treated according to the principles laid down by the Liberal Opposition.[319] They have been encouraged to believe that Great Britain will protect them against external aggression, and nothing has been done to make them suspect that she has any intention of interfering with their independence.