Little need be said of the fall of Khartoum—the crowning disaster of the campaign. Gordon’s Journals show how, alone and unaided, in defending the city, during a siege that lasted 319 days, he kept at bay the swarming hordes of the Mahdi. The romantic record of his life amply illustrates his higher qualities—the chivalry and loyalty; the sweet, gentle manners, the kindliness of heart, the stainless honour, the infinite self-abnegation, the patient endurance, the stubborn valour, the natural and acquired military skill that made him

His Khartoum “Journals” show more than that. They prove that from first to last through the long series of transactions that led up to the fall of the city, Gordon was the only man who kept his head cool, who acted from firm set purpose, who was not afraid to look on the facts with naked eyes, whose inexhaustible ingenuity in dealing practically with every fresh difficulty as it arose never failed him or his masters, and whose shrewd and sagacious prevision was never once ignored, save at the cost of cruel suffering to those who refused his guidance.[225] Valour and virtue such as his can indeed “outbuild the Pyramids.” Of the millions of English men and English women, who mourned over the heroic defender of Khartoum, none grieved more bitterly for his loss than the Queen. To his sister she wrote as follows:—

After Gordon’s death public interest in the “sad Soudan” slowly faded. The River Column under General Earle’s skilful guidance had won a brilliant little victory at Kirbekan, where, however, its gallant leader lost his life. He was succeeded by General Brackenbury, who ascended the river steadily to Abu Hamed. Suddenly, however, Lord Wolseley ordered both columns to retreat on Korti, and hold Dongola till his autumn campaign of vengeance against the Mahdi could be undertaken. Meanwhile, General Graham, with 9,000 men, and an Indian and Australian Contingent,[227] was to drive back Osman Digna at Suakin, and lay a railway from that port to Berber. Graham defeated the Arabs in several engagements, though in one of them the skill with which the Arabs surprised a zareba almost reproduced the disaster of Isandhlwana. But the dispute with Russia afforded a plausible excuse for freeing England from the incubus of the Soudan, and in April Lord Wolseley evacuated Dongola and fell back on the line of Wady Halfa. The Suakin railway was abandoned, and when Lord Salisbury’s Government took office they, too, adhered to the policy of evacuation. The Mahdi died. Osman Digna became entangled in hostilities with the Abyssinian Ras Alula, who attempted to raise the siege of Kassala, and for a time it seemed as if all fears of disturbances on the Egyptian frontier were dispelled. Towards the end of the year, however, the Arabs attacked an advanced post beyond Assouan, where they were skilfully repulsed by General Stephenson at the battle of Kosheh.

Turning to the social events of 1885, the most remarkable was the sudden announcement on New Year’s Day of the betrothal of the Princess Beatrice to Prince Henry of Battenberg, the younger brother of Prince Louis, the husband of the Princess’s niece—Victoria of Hesse. For fourteen years the Princess Beatrice had been the close companion of the Queen, and their lives had in time become so closely intertwined that a separation could hardly be contemplated by either with equanimity. It was therefore quite natural that Prince Henry of Battenberg, whose fortune was hardly adequate to the maintenance of a separate establishment, should permit intimation to be made that he was to live with the Princess in attendance on the Queen. The announcement of the marriage was as surprising to the Royal Family as it was to the people. In the country the old prejudice against the marriage of a Princess who claimed a dowry from the State, with a person outside the Royal caste speedily manifested itself. Indeed, the feeling against the arrangement was even stronger than that which prevailed when the Princess Louise married the Marquis of Lorne. After all, the latter was the son of a great noble on whose birth no stain of ambiguity rested. Prince Henry of Battenberg, on the other hand, was the offspring of a “morganatic” marriage between Prince Alexander of Hesse and the Countess Hauke, the granddaughter of a Polish Jew, who had entered the service of the Hessian Court in a very subordinate capacity. It was difficult to get the populace to understand that a morganatic marriage was in a certain sense a legal union—not void, though possibly under pressure of State exigencies voidable by the Royal husband—that in fact there was nothing disreputable in such an alliance, save in the sense in which it is considered a social offence for a great noble to marry his mother’s scullery-maid. The hostility of the German Crown Princess and the Court of Berlin to the connection did much to create an erroneous impression in England as to the status of Prince Henry. The Prince’s lack of fortune did not redeem his lack of social position—and it was most unfortunate that his nearest connection with Royalty was through his cousin the Grand Duke of Hesse. For the divorce suit raised by the Grand Duke against the Countess de Kalomine, a lady whom he had “morganatically” married in secret on the very night when his daughter, the Princess Victoria, was wedded to Prince Louis of Battenberg, had rendered his family extremely unpopular in England.

That some friction had been created in the Royal Family by the unexpected introduction of Prince Henry to its circle was soon made manifest. When Prince Albert Victor of Wales, the Heir-Presumptive to the Throne, came of age on the 8th of January, neither the Queen, nor the Princess Beatrice, nor Prince Henry of Battenberg—then at Osborne—graced with their presence the joyous celebrations at Sandringham, which were attended by all the other members of the Royal Family. It was also remarked that Prince Henry left England without receiving the congratulations of the Prince of Wales on his betrothal. At a Privy Council, which the Queen held at Osborne on the 26th of January, her Majesty’s formal consent to her daughter’s marriage was given.

Preparations had been made early in March for the Queen’s Easter visit to Darmstadt, but owing to the death of Princess Charles of Hesse, mother of the Grand Duke, her Majesty’s arrangements were altered, and it was decided that she should visit Aix-les-Bains first and take Darmstadt on the return journey. Her Majesty left Windsor on the last day of March for the Villa Mottet, a charming residence in the grounds of the Hôtel de l’Europe, Aix-les-Bains, while the Prince and Princess of Wales spent their Easter in paying a State visit to Ireland. The Queen’s holiday was sadly broken by the diplomatic controversy with Russia as to the Afghan frontier. Piles of despatch-boxes were given to her when she started, and as many as fifty telegraphic messages a day in cipher were sent to her and answered. Before proceeding to Darmstadt, her Majesty, who had been using her influence with the German Court in order to induce Russia to accept an honourable compromise, offered to return to Windsor if Ministers desired her presence. Mr. Gladstone was not of opinion that this sacrifice was necessary, and on the 23rd of April she accordingly proceeded to Darmstadt, where she again occupied the new Palace on the Platz which had been built for the Princess Alice. At this time her Majesty was much grieved at the reckless and bellicose tone of London Society. She was so anxious to counteract it that the Prince of Wales, knowing her feeling on the subject, was supposed to have dropped some hints at Marlborough House which suddenly imparted quite a pacific tone to the fire-eaters of Piccadilly. Couriers passed so frequently between the Queen and the German Emperor, who with the Crown Prince gave her Majesty much sympathetic aid and counsel throughout the crisis, that the German Press were alarmed lest the Emperor was about to intervene as a mediator between Russia and England. A war between the two nations would have been extremely inconvenient to the Royal Family—in fact, it had been arranged in anticipation of such a calamity that the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh must break up their establishment in England, and retire to Coburg. Another circumstance forced a pacific policy on the Court. The Duke of Edinburgh had not concealed from the Sovereign the fact that the Fleet was effective solely on paper. Indeed, had Admiral Hoskins, who was ordered to hold himself in readiness to proceed with his squadron to the Baltic, attempted to carry out his instructions, he would have found himself paralysed, simply because he had neither efficient guns nor transport. On the 2nd of May the Queen, returned to Windsor, where she held an anxious consultation with Lord Granville next day. On the 12th of May her Majesty held a Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace, but as on previous occasions, she stayed only a short time, leaving the Princess of Wales as usual to complete the function.

On the 14th of May, Mr. Gladstone carried a resolution in the House of Commons that an annuity of £6,000 a year should be granted to the Princess Beatrice on her marriage; and, by way of conciliating the House, promised that in the next Parliament a Committee would be appointed to consider the plan on which what he called “secondary provisions” for the younger members of the Royal Family, should be made.[228] The proposed annuity was opposed on the old ground that the Queen was rich enough to support her own family, and Mr. Labouchere argued that as she never had a right to the hereditary revenues of the Crown, the plea that she had given up her income for a Civil List was invalid. But it is certain that in the Royal Speech, at the opening of Parliament in 1837 the Queen said, “I place unreservedly at your disposal those hereditary revenues which were transferred to the public by my immediate predecessor,” and in the Address the Queen was then not only thanked for her generosity, but promised an adequate Civil List in return. It was also forgotten that at least four impecunious princely families—those of the Duke of Albany, Prince Louis, Prince Henry of Battenberg, and Prince Christian—must be a charge on the private income of the Queen.[229]

On the 22nd of May the Court went to Balmoral. The Russian dispute was now compromised, so that the Queen was able to thoroughly enjoy her Highland visit. She spent much of her time in the cottages and homes of the peasantry, to whom she was unusually lavish this year with gifts commemorating her birthday. When she arrived she found that the celebrated cradle and rope bridge over the Dee at Abergeldie—which most of the Royal personages in Europe had used at different times—was removed, and replaced by a substantial footbridge which had been put up at her expense. But the fall of Mr. Gladstone’s Government shortened the Queen’s sojourn in Scotland, and she had to return to Windsor on the 17th of June. Complaints were made that she was absent in Aberdeenshire when the Ministerial crisis occurred. But the crisis was unexpected, and since the Prince Consort’s death the Queen has always preferred Balmoral to Windsor during Ascot Race week. The death of Prince Frederick Charles (the “Red Prince”) of Prussia, at the comparatively early age of fifty-seven, deprived Germany of one of her ablest military tacticians, and sent the English Court into mourning. He was the father of the Duchess of Connaught, to whom he bequeathed a large part of his vast wealth. By a strange blunder which gave infinite annoyance to the Queen, not only did the Prince of Wales appear at Ascot after the event, but her Majesty’s order that Court mourning should begin on the 16th was not officially proclaimed till the 18th. The Royal procession at Ascot on the afternoon of the “Red Prince’s” death, caused much irritation at the Court of Berlin.

On the 9th the Court removed to Osborne—the Queen being desirous of personally supervising the arrangements for the Princess Beatrice’s marriage, which was to take place in Whippingham Parish Church. As there was no precedent for a Royal marriage in a country parish church, Sir Henry Ponsonby and the Court officials had considerable trouble in ordering the ceremony. They were further perplexed by the various instructions which day after day came from the Queen and the Princess. On the 23rd of July the marriage was solemnised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester, the Dean of Windsor, and Canon Prothero, Vicar of Whippingham. The ceremony was one of demi-state only; and, although the wedding procession was very pretty, especially when seen in the golden light of a July day, it was not brilliant. The nieces of the Princess Beatrice were her bridesmaids, and most of her near relations were present. The family of Hesse-Darmstadt was well represented; and, with the exception of Mr. Gladstone, most of the leading personages in English Society were present. Yet somehow the ceremony seemed to lack the courtly importance and dignity of other Royal marriages, and the absence of the German Crown Prince and Princess, who were not even represented by any of their family, was only too noticeable. The German Emperor, who had been deeply incensed by the de Kalomine scandal, had not yet been persuaded to look kindly on the Court of Darmstadt; but the German Empress, on the other hand, testified her interest in the bride by sending Princess Beatrice a Dresden china clock and bracket as a wedding gift. After the marriage the Queen conferred the Order of the Garter on Prince Henry of Battenberg—adding one more to the already crowded companionship of Royal Knights. This distinction had never before been given to a foreign personage not a monarch de facto, or born in the Royal caste, and there can be no doubt that the other Royal Knights of the family would have considered the Order of the Bath a more suitable distinction for Prince Henry.[230] It was also intimated in the Gazette (July 24th, 1885) that Prince Henry would forthwith assume the title of Royal Highness—a rank, however, which could not be conceded to him outside of English territory.[231]

It is remarkable that no family objections were raised to the recognition of Lady Augusta Lennox, who had long been married to Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, as the Princess Edward. Till 1885 she had only been received in Court as the Countess Dornburg, a title which had been “created” for her on her marriage, in spite of her high social position as daughter of the Duke of Richmond, to satisfy the exigencies of German etiquette.

After the close of the Parliamentary Session, the Court went from Osborne to Balmoral (August 25th), where the Princess Beatrice and her husband received a warm Highland reception. Life at Balmoral was somewhat dull, but in her walks and drives the Queen was now accompanied by Prince Henry of Battenberg as well as the Princess Beatrice. When not in attendance on the Queen, the Prince occasionally found amusement in deerstalking in the Balloch Pine and Abergeldie grounds. Her Majesty remained at Balmoral till the 18th of November, when she returned to Windsor to hold a Council, at which she sanctioned the dissolution of Parliament. On the 9th of December, accompanied by the Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg, the Queen presented medals for service in the Soudan to a number of Guardsmen at Windsor. On the 18th of December she left Windsor for Osborne. It was now plainly intimated to her Majesty that the royal rank and precedence conferred on Prince Henry of Battenberg would not be recognised at Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, the Courts at which capitals insisted on treating the marriage of the Princess Beatrice as a purely “morganatic” one. The difficulties which arose out of this incident were further aggravated when the Queen permitted the Count and Countess Gleichen to assume the rank and title of Prince and Princess Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenberg.[232]

In the spring of 1885 a rebellion of French half-breeds in the Canadian North-West, led by Riel, one of the pardoned insurgents who had been engaged in the Red River rising, was suppressed with great skill and ability by the Canadian Militia, under General Sir Frederick Middleton. Riel was tried and hanged for treason.

The misrule of Theebaw, the half-crazy King of Burmah, together with his intrigues with the French—then busy with the conquest of Tonquin—led to disputes between the Indian and Burmese Governments. The result was a war which ended in the deposition of King Theebaw and the annexation of Upper Burmah to the Indian Empire.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE BATTLE OF THE UNION.

The closing months of 1885 were devoted to preparations for the General Election. Mr. Chamberlain’s speeches developed his doctrine of “ransom” with a vigour of language and directness of purpose that terrified the Whigs. At Bradford he demanded Disestablishment, and thus concentrated the malice of the Church on the whole Liberal Party. Mr. Gladstone issued a moderate manifesto to his constituents, known as the “Midlothian Programme,” in which he attempted to neutralise Mr. Chamberlain’s “unauthorised programme.” The reform of Parliamentary procedure, and Local Government, the reform of the Registration Laws, and of land transfer were the famous “four points” on which he dwelt. As for Mr. Chamberlain’s suggestions for disestablishment, for education, graduated Income Tax, and the abolition of the House of Lords, he put them aside, refusing to peer “into the dim and distant courses of the future.” The Tory leaders professed themselves equally willing to reform Procedure, the Land Laws, and Local Government, and attacked the Whigs for their alliance with the Birmingham School of Radicals. Lord Randolph Churchill, in fact, appealed to the Whigs to coalesce with the Tories in resisting what Lord Hartington called “measures of a Socialistic tendency.” Both parties in the State made high bids for the Irish Vote. Mr. Chamberlain offered to Mr. Parnell a scheme of Home Rule, under which Ireland would be governed by Four Provincial Parliaments—in fact, he furbished up an old idea which the venerable Earl Russell had shed from his mind when it was in the last stage of decay. The Tories, through Lord Carnarvon, offered Mr. Parnell some form of Home Rule under which Ireland was to have a Legislature of her own with the right to levy Protective Duties on imported goods.[233] Though Lord

Salisbury’s Newport address was ambiguous in its references to Home Rule, it rather gave colour to the prevalent belief that if the Tories could win a majority by the Irish vote, they would hold power by giving Ireland Home Rule. At the same time, it is but right to say that Lord Salisbury and his colleagues never appear to have committed the Cabinet to Lord Carnarvon’s bargain with Mr. Parnell. Indeed, they even seem to have told Lord Carnarvon that, personally, they disapproved of his Irish policy. They, however, still retained his services as a Cabinet Minister, though Lord Salisbury had discovered that he was a Home Ruler.

Mr. Parnell issued a manifesto fiercely attacking the Liberal Party, and ordering all Irishmen to give their votes to the Government. The Liberals, on the other hand, appealed to the people for such a majority as would enable Mr. Gladstone to defy Mr. Parnell. The elections began on the 24th of November. They showed that in the boroughs the Liberal Party was shattered, though it had, through Mr. Chamberlain’s doctrine of ransom, won in the counties all along the line.[234] The new House of Commons it was found would contain 333 Liberals, 251 Tories, and 86 Parnellites, not one Liberal having been returned by Ireland. In the circumstances it was hopeless for the Ministry to attempt a settlement of the Irish Question on Lord Carnarvon’s lines.[235] They had, even with the Irish vote, only a majority of four. But then, if they dared to make concessions to Mr. Parnell, this majority of four would inevitably be converted, by the secession of the Ulster Tories, into a minority of eight. The Liberal Leaders, on the other hand, were in an equally difficult predicament. They, too, could not hope to govern the country save by the Irish vote. It was quite possible, moreover, for the Government, by conceding Home Rule, to detach from the Liberals a sufficient number of Radicals to more than counterbalance the Ulster secession. In these circumstances Mr. Gladstone towards the end of the year let it be known indirectly that he was in favour of giving Ireland Home Rule.

Ere Parliament opened on the 12th of January, 1886, the resignation of Lord Carnarvon indicated that Ministers had dissolved the connection between the Tory Party and the Parnellites. The House of Commons elected Mr. Peel as its Speaker, and when Mr. Bradlaugh appeared he took the Oath in the ordinary manner. The Queen’s Speech was read on the 21st of January by her Majesty in person, but its references to Ireland were vague, though they foreshadowed the introduction of a Coercion Bill. In the preliminary skirmishes Mr. Gladstone threw out overtures to the Irish Party which Mr. Parnell and Mr. Sexton hailed with effusive delight. The Government, on the other hand, announced the introduction of a Coercion Bill, which would also suppress the National League. The Liberals and Parnellites now promptly united to support an Amendment moved by Mr. Jesse Collings, which censured the Ministry for refusing to bring in a Labourers’ Allotments Bill, and the Coalition defeated the Government by a vote of 329 to 258. The opposition of Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen to the Amendment showed that the Whigs at least were afraid of Mr. Gladstone’s return to office, after his vague and ambiguous promises of concessions to the Home Rulers. Lord Salisbury resigned, and when Mr. Gladstone formed his Ministry it was seen that many of his old colleagues, such as Lord Hartington, Mr. Goschen, Mr. Forster, Lord Selborne, Lord Northbrook, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Cowper, and Sir Henry James, had refused to join him. The appointment of Lord Aberdeen as Irish Viceroy was not very significant. But that Mr. John Morley, the most pronounced of all the English advocates of Home Rule, should have been appointed as Chief Secretary for Ireland meant much. Lord Rosebery was made Foreign Secretary, and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman Secretary at War. Both were known to be Home Rulers. Lord Spencer, disgusted at his betrayal by the Tory Party, had also become a convert to Home Rule principles, and was appointed President of the Council. Oddly enough Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan, who were both pledged against Home Rule, had joined the Ministry. But they had been induced to do so on the assurance that, in the meantime, the policy of the Cabinet would be merely to examine and inquire into the Home Rule question.

During the spring nothing was done in the matter. The House of Commons refused to press Ministers upon their Irish policy, evidently deeming it reasonable that Mr. Gladstone should have time to work it out. Lord Hartington and the Whigs, however, adopted an attitude of independence which showed that Mr. Gladstone had failed to heal the divisions in the Liberal Party. Hence, when it was announced that Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan, on being informed of Mr. Gladstone’s proposals for the reform of the Irish Government, had resigned office, it was evident that the fate of the Ministry was sealed.

On the 8th of April Mr. Gladstone expounded the scheme, which set up in Ireland an Executive Government, responsible to an Irish Legislature, capable of dealing with all matters save the Crown, the Army and Navy, Foreign and Colonial Policy, Trade, Navigation, Currency, Imperial taxation, and the endowment of churches. The Lord-Lieutenant, on the advice of his Ministers, was to have a power of veto. The Irish Legislative Body was to consist of two Orders, voting apart, the first to comprise representative peers and members elected under a £25 property qualification, and the second members chosen by household suffrage. In the event of collision between the two Orders, the measure in dispute was to be held in suspense for three years, or until a dissolution. The Irish contribution to the Imperial Revenue was fixed at £3,242,000. On the 13th of April Mr. Gladstone introduced a Land Bill as a complementary measure to his Home Rule Bill. He proposed to give every Irish landlord the option of selling his land to an authority appointed by the Irish Government, who would sell it to the tenants, the purchase-money being advanced through the Imperial Exchequer by an issue of Consols. These advances the tenant was to repay in instalments spread over forty-nine years, and twenty years’ purchase was taken as the basis of the price. The amount to be advanced at first under the Bill was to be £50,000,000, but in the original draft it was nearly £300,000,000. The repayments were to be secured on the Irish Revenue, and paid to a British Receiver-General in Ireland. The opponents of the whole scheme contended that it gave no effective guarantee for Imperial unity, that it put the loyal minority entirely in the power of the disloyal majority in Ireland, that it multiplied the risks of collision between Ireland and the Imperial Government, that, in point of fact, it was virtually a Bill to repeal the Union. Mr. Gladstone’s chief argument in favour of the scheme was that the English democracy could no longer be trusted to hold Ireland down by repressive legislation, and that Home Rule was the only alternative to Coercion. Moreover, as Coercion bred Irish disloyalty, it weakened the Imperial power of England in the world. Though the Orangemen of Ulster plainly declared that they would plunge into civil war rather than submit to a Home Rule Government in Ireland, Mr. Parnell accepted the Bill in principle as an adequate concession of the Nationalist claims.

The weak points in the scheme were soon detected. One of these was the exclusion of the Irish Members from the House of Commons—the only proposal of Mr. Gladstone’s which had been hailed with applause from both sides of the House when he expounded his Bill. The absence of the Irish Members from the House of Commons was taken as a visible sign, not only that the Parliamentary Union between Ireland and the United Kingdom was dissolved, but that the control and authority of the Imperial Parliament over Ireland was impaired. The Purchase scheme alarmed the taxpayers, who objected to pledge the credit of England in order to buy the Irish landlords out of Ireland. It is now known that, if Mr. Gladstone had made concessions by promising to reconsider the question of retaining the Irish Members at Westminster, and to remodel the Bill accordingly, the Second Reading would have been carried. A meeting of Liberals was indeed held at the Foreign Office to hear what concessions Mr. Gladstone would make. Subsequently, in explaining his speech at this meeting to the House of Commons, his phraseology seemed to the wavering Liberals so illusory that they refused to support him. Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain accordingly organised their followers (about fifty in number) into a separate Parliamentary party, describing themselves as Liberal Unionists, and at their first meeting a letter was read from Mr. Bright casting in his lot with theirs. They bound themselves to vote against the Second Reading of Mr. Gladstone’s Bills.

On the 7th of June the Home Rule Bill was rejected by a majority of 341 against 311. Mr. Gladstone obtained from the Queen permission to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the country. The Ministerial candidates, at the General Election which followed, relied mainly upon the contention that Home Rule was the only alternative to Coercion, and the Tories and Liberal Unionists, on the other hand, pledged themselves to govern Ireland without Coercion, and still retain the Parliamentary Union unbroken. The Liberal Unionists and the Tories formed an alliance for electoral purposes similar to that which Lord Malmesbury, in 1857, had vainly attempted to cement between the Peelites and the Derbyites. The Irish vote failed to balance the votes of the Liberal Unionists, and when the new House of Commons was elected it was found to consist of 316 Tories, 76 Liberal Unionists, 192 Liberal Home Rulers, and 86 Parnellites. Mr. Gladstone resigned, and Lord Salisbury formed a Ministry, having unsuccessfully endeavoured to persuade Lord Hartington and the Liberal Unionist leaders to join a Coalition Cabinet. The services rendered by Lord Randolph Churchill in rousing the fanaticism of Ulster were rewarded with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the leadership of the House of Commons. Lord Iddesleigh became Foreign Secretary; Mr. Matthews, Q.C., who had carried one of the seats in Birmingham, became Home Secretary; Sir M. Hicks-Beach was deposed from the leadership of the Commons, and relegated to his old post of Chief Secretary for Ireland. As soon as Lord Salisbury assumed office he found that a fresh agrarian crisis was menacing Ireland. The Irish farmers were demanding a revision even of the fixed judicial rents in terms of the recent fall in prices. There seemed no end to the difficulty, and, in a pessimist mood, Lord Salisbury, at the opening of the Session, declared that he was now in favour of getting rid of the dual-ownership of land in Ireland. In fact, he accepted the principle of a great Land-Purchase scheme, but he also broached the theory that, if judicial rents were cut down, the State should recoup the landlords for their losses.

After the debates on the Address were over Mr. Parnell brought in a Relief Bill, allowing tenants who deposited half their rent in Court to claim from the Court a revision of their rents. The Bill was rejected by the combined vote of the Tories and Liberal Unionists. Mr. Dillon now advised the Irish tenants to refuse to pay more rent than they could afford. His suggestion was that they should combine on each estate, offer the landlord a fair rent, and if this was refused, deposit it in the hands of trustees, and use it to resist eviction. This was known as “The Plan of Campaign” against rack-renters, and it was widely adopted all over Ireland. Sir M. Hicks-Beach and Sir Redvers Buller, who had been sent to organise the police in Kerry, apparently discovered that there was much truth in Mr. Parnell’s contention, that the fall in prices had made judicial rents impossible. The Irish Government, at all events, now put pressure on rack-renting landlords, in order to prevent them from demanding full rents and from evicting if they were not paid. But Ministers declined to legislate for Ireland till the following Session, though they appointed Commissions to amass materials for legislation. Parliament was prorogued on the 25th of September.

During the autumn the schism between the Liberal Unionists and the Liberals widened. At Leeds the Liberals pledged themselves anew to adhere to Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule policy. On the 7th of December Lord Hartington’s followers held a Conference in London, at which further arrangements were made for completing their organisation as a distinct Party pledged to maintain the Union. As the year closed various rumours of dissensions in the Cabinet were promulgated. There had been a good deal of agitation against the wasteful extravagance and inefficiency of the spending departments of the State, and Lord Randolph Churchill was called on by public opinion to redeem the pledges in favour of economy which he gave at Blackpool on the 24th of January, 1884. In attempting to do this he found himself thwarted by his colleagues, and, to the astonishment of his Party, he resigned office. He was succeeded by Mr. Goschen, who entered the Cabinet, with Lord Hartington’s sanction, as a Liberal Unionist, thereby illustrating afresh the closeness of the coalition between the Dissentient Liberals and the Tories.

During the year there was some agitation raised as to the sad condition of the unemployed in London. The Tories had taken advantage of this to revive the Protectionist Movement under pretence of advocating Fair Trade at meetings held in Trafalgar Square. On the 8th of February, however, the Socialists followed suit, and organised a demonstration in favour of their panacea for poverty. The police arrangements were somewhat defective. A crowd of roughs and thieves who hovered round the fringe of the mob evaded the constabulary, rushed along Pall Mall and Piccadilly smashing the windows of the clubs and sacking the principal jewellers’ shops. The agitation proceeded, and a counter demonstration to the Lord Mayor’s Show on the 9th of November was even planned. It was, however, prohibited by the police.

As the celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee was now within measurable distance, already there were great manifestations of popular feeling in favour of Imperial Unity. In this year the Imperial Federation League was founded for the purpose of drawing closer the bonds between the Colonies and the Mother Country. The Indian and Colonial Exhibition at South Kensington was organised by the Prince of Wales on a scale of sumptuous splendour which attracted visitors to London from all parts of the globe. It was opened with great pomp and ceremony by the Queen in person on the 4th of May, in the presence of the more prominent members of the Royal Family, the great dignitaries in Church and State, and the representatives of India and the Colonies. This amazing display of the vast resources of the Empire soon degenerated into an evening lounge. But it brought together a vast number of able men from every quarter of the world interested in the problem of Imperial Federation, and the Prince of Wales dexterously seized the opportunity thus created for him to establish a centre and rallying-point for British Imperialism. He started the movement that ended in the foundation of the Imperial Institute. The Queen visited the Exhibition several times, paying special attention to the Indian Court, and conversing graciously with the Indian workmen.

On the 11th of May her Majesty visited Liverpool to open the International Exhibition in that city. On the 13th she visited the Seamen’s Orphanage, and afterwards sailed down the Mersey, contrasting the scene with that on which she gazed when, in 1851, she made a similar excursion with the Prince Consort. Then the Queen was the guest of Lord Sefton; on this occasion she was the guest of the city of Liverpool, the Municipality having fitted up Newsham House for her accommodation. On the 15th she returned to Windsor, the effect of her visit having been to vastly increase her popularity in the North of England. On the 26th of May the Court proceeded to Balmoral. During the absence of the Court in Scotland the Prince and Princess of Wales stimulated the gaiety of the London Season. It was remarkable for the prevalence of Sunday re-unions, the patronage of which by the Heir Apparent soon made them fashionable even among serious Church-going people. On the 30th of June the Queen opened the Royal Holloway College for Women at Egham, an institution for the higher education of women founded by the vendor of the famous ointment and pills. As women had been among the chief buyers both of the ointment and the pills, there was a touch of irony in Mr. Holloway’s bequest that recalled the legacy left by Swift to found a madhouse for the use of the Irish people. On the 2nd of July her Majesty reviewed 10,000 troops at Aldershot, and on the 5th entertained a large number of the Indian and Colonial visitors at Windsor. She attended the brilliant garden-party given by the Prince and Princess of Wales at Marlborough House on the 10th; and on the 20th, accompanied by the Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg, left Windsor for Osborne, where she was soon absorbed in the business attendant on a change of Ministry. On the 17th of August her Majesty left Osborne for Edinburgh, where, on the 18th, she visited the International Exhibition. On the 20th the Queen went to Balmoral, where she remained till the 4th of November. On the 5th she visited the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch at Dalkeith Palace, and inspected the Hospital for Incurables at Edinburgh, returning to Windsor on the 6th. On the 22nd her Majesty received at Windsor, with much ceremony, their Imperial Highnesses the Prince and Princess Komatsu of Japan, and on the 29th the Court removed to Osborne.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE JUBILEE.

It was on the 20th of June, 1886, that the Queen entered on the fiftieth year of her reign. But her Majesty naturally refused to assume that she would live to the end of it, and she accordingly determined that the actual celebration of her Jubilee should be put off till the 20th of June, 1887. Thus it came to pass that 1887 will be known as the Jubilee Year of the Victorian period. It was a year that opened badly for the Government. The sudden resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill at the close of 1886 rendered a reconstruction of the Cabinet necessary. Efforts were made in vain to induce some of the Whig Peers to join the Ministry, but, as we have seen, at last Mr. Goschen was persuaded to accept the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. The leadership of the Commons was given to Mr. W. H. Smith, who was made First Lord of the Treasury; whilst Lord Salisbury, who held that office, assumed the Secretaryship of State for Foreign Affairs. This involved the enforced retirement of Lord Iddesleigh in somewhat painful circumstances, which were further heightened by his sudden death from heart-disease on the 13th of January. The discreditable intrigue, which began by deposing him from the Leadership of the House of Commons, thus ended tragically. Some of the leaders of the Liberal and Liberal Unionist Parties were also endeavouring to discover some means of reconciling these now hostile factions. Parliament was opened on the 27th of January, and the Speech from the Throne plainly foreshadowed the introduction of a Coercion Bill for Ireland. It hinted at a Land Bill as a possible measure; indeed, had it not done so the alliance between the Government and the Liberal Unionists would have been weakened. Other measures promised were Bills for reforming local government in England, Scotland, and, “should circumstances render it possible,” in Ireland, for cheapening private Bill legislation, and land transfer. An Allotments Bill, a Tithe Bill, a Railway Rates and Merchandise Marks Bill, were also in the programme, which was large and varied. But the debate on the Address showed that no opposed Bills were likely to pass unless the House of Commons reformed its procedure, and to this task the Tory Party had most grudgingly to apply itself. Six sittings were spent on the Address as a general subject of discussion. After that amendments relating to the evacuation of Egypt and the Irish policy announced in the Queen’s Speech were debated. Three Scottish amendments were next brought forward, so that when, at the sixteenth sitting of the House, Mr. Dillon began to denounce jury-packing in Dublin, the Speaker ruled him out of order. A motion for an adjournment was defeated, and a motion to consider the condition of unemployed labourers in England was declared by the Speaker to have been sufficiently discussed after two speeches were delivered. The Closure, so dreaded by the Tories in former Parliaments, was then applied by Mr. Smith, a vote taken, and the Address disposed of on the 17th of February.

The Government lost no time in preparing to meet the obstruction with which their Coercion Bill was already threatened. They circulated their new rules for debates, and on the 21st of February Mr. W. H. Smith moved the adoption of the Closure, vesting the initiative in applying it not in the Speaker, which was the old rule, but in a bare majority of the House, provided always that at least 200 Members voted for it. The Liberal Leaders supported the proposal on principle, but complained that the new rule was still too weak, and that it ought to be applied unconditionally. Their view was confirmed in the following year, when Mr. W. H. Smith was forced to reduce the necessary quorum of 200 to 100. Meanwhile events had been moving apace in Ireland. The Chief Secretary, Sir M. Hicks-Beach, finding that the landlords were cruelly straining their rights against the poorer tenantry, urged them to be merciful for the sake of peace. He put upon them what he called “pressure within the law,” which practically meant that he hinted to them that he would refuse them the aid of the police in enforcing warrants of the Courts. In other words, he seemed to be exercising the “dispensing power” of the Executive, little more than a year after Mr. Morley had been forced to apologise for even suggesting its exercise. In Ireland evictions were resisted by force, and lurid pictures of the state of the country were drawn by the supporters of the Government. The prosecution of Mr. Dillon and other Irish leaders for a conspiracy to defeat the law, because they advocated the Plan of Campaign, broke down through the disagreement of a Dublin jury. The negotiations between the Liberal Unionists and Liberals at the “Round Table Conference” were said to be producing happy results, and it was soon noised abroad that the Government not only hesitated to demand a Coercion Bill, but that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was ruling the Irish with a hand so light that they were lapsing into lawlessness. The Times published a series of articles designed to prove that Mr. Parnell and the Irish Home Rule Members were secretly in league with the Party of Assassination. Mutterings of mutiny were heard from the Irish Tories, and at this crisis Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, against whom these complaints were directed, suddenly resigned. This step, however, had been rendered necessary in consequence of his failing eyesight rather than from considerations of a political character. To his post Lord Salisbury appointed his nephew, Mr. Arthur James Balfour, pledged to carry out an unflinching policy of Coercion. Sir George Trevelyan, one of the secessionists from the Liberal Party, about this time showed by his public utterances that he had now returned to Mr. Gladstone’s party.

On the 23rd of March Mr. Smith moved that the Crimes Bill have precedence over all other orders—and then the battle began. It was not till the 28th that Mr. Balfour was able to move for leave to introduce the measure, in a speech which seemed to show either that his case was exceptionally weak, or that he had not been able to master it.[236] The Bill gave magistrates power to inquire into crimes where no person was charged. It gave two resident magistrates summary jurisdiction and power to inflict imprisonment up to six months in cases of criminal conspiracy, boycotting, rioting, assaults on the police, and in cases of inciting to these offences. It gave the Lord-Lieutenant power to “proclaim” certain associations as dangerous, and to subject to the penal clauses of the Bill any one who after that took part in them. The Bill was to be a permanent measure, and not like former Coercion Bills, merely passed for a fixed period of time. Violent scenes occurred during the debates which led up to the Second Reading of the measure on the 28th of April, and the House was in an irritable mood because it had been forced to sacrifice most of its Easter holiday. In spite of the frequent use of the Closure, the first clause, which was scarcely a contentious one, was not carried in Committee till the 17th of May. When the fourth clause was reached, on the 10th of June, Mr. W. H. Smith moved a resolution that if the Bill were not reported at 10 p.m. on the 17th, the remaining clauses should be put to the vote without debate. When that hour struck Sir Charles Russell was speaking on the sixth clause. The Chairman stopped the debate, and put the question, the Irish Members leaving the House in a body. After the division the Liberal Members also left, and the rest of the Bill passed without any more opposition. It was read a third time on the 8th of July, and having been adopted by the Peers, it received the Queen’s assent on the 19th of July. The determination of the Government to carry the Coercion Bill was natural. It had been admitted by all clear thinkers that, unless Home Rule were granted to Ireland, she could only be governed under Coercion. Moreover, the introduction of the Bill before the Liberal Unionists and Liberals had been reconciled, forced the former to vote for Coercion, which rendered the gulf between them and the old Liberal Party practically impassable. But ere the Liberal Unionists thus burned their boats, they had induced the Ministry to bring in a conciliatory Irish Land Bill in the House of Lords. The Peers sent it down to the Commons on the 4th of July, when the Second Reading was moved on the 12th. The Bill adopted Mr. Parnell’s proposal of the previous year, to admit leaseholders to the benefit of the Land Act of 1881; it gave notice of eviction the same effect as the actual service of an ejectment writ, and gave the Courts power to stay execution, and arrange for payment of rent on easy terms when the tenants were in distress. But when insolvent, it provided for them relief from rent and all other debts by a process of bankruptcy, allowing them, however, to retain their farms. Mr. Campbell-Bannerman attacked the bankruptcy clauses, and demanded a revision of all Irish rents in terms of the fall in prices. To a general revision of rents the Government would on no account assent. But the revolt of one of the Liberal Unionists, Mr. T. W. Russell, compelled them to reconsider the bankruptcy clauses. The Tories argued that it was unjust to ask the landlord to accept a composition for rent from the farmer, when the tradesmen to whom he owed money were not expected to abate their claims. Mr. Parnell and Mr. T. W. Russell contended that no analogy could be drawn between rent and trade debts. The latter had never been disputed by the debtor. The former had been disputed. The tenant who owed money to his grocer or seed-merchant never denied that he had got value for it. But he did deny that he had got value for the money his landlord claimed as rent, and he was able to prove this in court when the rent was cut down. To insist, as did Mr. Chamberlain, on relief from just and unjust claims being given with equal ease under a process of gentle bankruptcy, at which the State was asked to connive, was to make an attack on property and on credit from which even the leaders of the Paris Commune might have shrunk. It was tantamount to asserting that whenever a man was able to show that one creditor had overcharged him 30 per cent. he was entitled to refuse payment of his just debts to all creditors who had not overcharged him, unless they too took 30 per cent. off their bills. When this was made clear not even Mr. Chamberlain’s advocacy sufficed to save the bankruptcy clauses, which were accordingly dropped. But by way of conciliating the landlords the Government insisted on applying the vicious principle to arrears of rent. No relief from unjust arrears was to be given unless they were to be dealt with in bankruptcy alongside just and undisputed trade debts. The result was that when the Bill passed it had a fatal defect in it. It prohibited landlords from evicting for unjust rents, but by this clause it left them free to evict for the arrears which had accumulated under rents which the Courts decided to be unjust. On the 19th of August the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland “proclaimed” the National League as a dangerous association, thereby enabling Mr. A. J. Balfour to suppress any branch of it he thought fit under the Crimes Act.