[1] Nothing did more to sap and undermine the popularity of the Government than an evasive statement of Mr. Cardwell’s as to the arms in store. On the vote for increasing the army by 20,000 men on the 1st of August, 1870, Sir John Hay asked what was the use of voting the money when the Government “had not 20,000 breechloaders ready for service for the army, the militia, and volunteers.” Mr. Cardwell, in reply, said he had 300,000 rifles “in store,” and left the House of Commons when it rose, under the impression that the weapons were ready for use as surplus weapons on any emergency. Of these, however, it was subsequently admitted by Mr. Cardwell in an interview with Lord Elcho that 100,000 were needed to meet existing demands, and that a considerable number of the rest were in Canada.

[2] There were also many whose objection to the grant to the Princess was based on the delusion that the Queen, by living in retirement, had accumulated savings out of which she could well afford to dower her daughter.

[3] A Royal warrant fixed the legal price of commissions. But they were sold in defiance of the law at prices far above the legal ones, and these were called “over-regulation prices.”

[4] It might be said that promotion could still be kept going on in the regiment itself. Officers need not have then been transferred for promotion. But in that case rich officers might have bribed their seniors to retire. Or, the subalterns might have made up a purse by subscription to induce one of their seniors to retire and let them each get a step upwards.

[5] It may be mentioned that this course was suggested as a possible one in the debate by Lord Derby.

[6] The alternative courses of a creation of new Peers, and a dissolution, it should be noted, also involved an exercise of the Royal Prerogative—a fact forgotten by those who denounced Mr. Gladstone as a “tyrant” for coercing the Peers by the use of Prerogative.

[7] According to Addison, the House of Commons as far back as 1708 began to discuss the Ballot. After 1832 it became a popular cry with the Radicals, and in the first Session of the Reformed Parliament Mr. Grote brought in a Ballot Bill which was rejected by a majority of 211 to 106. Year after year Mr. Grote was beaten in his attempt to carry his measure. To him succeeded Mr. Henry Berkeley, who every year brought forward a resolution in favour of secret voting, and in 1851 even carried it by a majority of 37 against the opposition of Lord John Russell and the Whig Government. The odious corruption and scandalous scenes of violence which were associated with open voting at elections gradually made Lord John and Mr. Gladstone converts to Mr. Berkeley’s views. In 1868 the revelations of Lord Hartington’s Committee as to the manner of conducting elections convinced the country that the Ballot must be adopted. In 1869 another Committee on Electoral Practices reported in favour of it.

[8] Philosophical Radicals, like Mr. Mill, disliked the Ballot because they feared that one influence would always operate on the ignorant elector’s mind, even in the secrecy of the polling booth—that of the priest who had threatened him with “the pains of Hell” as a punishment for voting on the wrong side.

[9] Mr. Disraeli, it is fair to say, had endeavoured to save the time of the House by suggesting that there should be no debate on the Second Reading—the discussion of the principle of the measure to be taken on the next stage—the motion that the Speaker leave the Chair. This arrangement was agreed to by the Government, but it provoked a mutiny in the Conservative ranks, or rather in the section of the Party represented by Mr. Beresford Hope, Mr. Newdegate, and Mr. G. Bentinck, the first-named of whom jeered at Mr. Disraeli’s late Administration as a “disorganised hypocrisy.”

[10] Mr. Gladstone and the Government supported the first, but opposed the latter of these proposals, greatly to the annoyance of the Radicals, who saw in it the most effective check to bribery that could be devised.

[11] Large numbers of Liberal Peers did not even attend the debate or the division.

[12] Previous to this Act the Unions were so far without the law, that they could not even prosecute their office-bearers for stealing their funds.

[13] This was given by Sir James Hannen in the case of a man called Purchon, a member of the Glassbottlers’ Union of Yorkshire. Three members of the Union, professing to believe certain disgraceful charges against Purchon, procured his expulsion from that body. Then his employers dismissed him because they were threatened with a strike if he remained in their service. Purchon sued the three Unionists who got him expelled from his Union for conspiring to deprive him of employment. Mr. Justice Hannen ruled that there was an undue interference with the rights of labour, and £300 damages were awarded by the jury. The case of Purchon v. Hartley proved that though the Unions had got rid of a limited term of imprisonment for coercion, they were now punishable by unlimited damages.

[14] Mr. Goschen based his case on the fact that Local Government was a chaos of areas, rating, and authorities. He proposed (1), that each parish should have an elected chairman who, aided but not controlled by it, should be the rating authority; (2), that county rates should be levied by a financial board, half being elected by justices and half by parish chairmen; (3), that a new department of State or Local Government Board should be created to supervise local finance and administration; (4), that rates should be split between occupier and owner, and levied on all exempted property, such as Crown property, charitable property, moneys, and game; (5), that the house duty (£1,200,000 a year) should be surrendered to the local ratepayers.

[15] His estimated expenditure was £72,308,000, and his estimated revenue £69,595,000 on the existing basis of taxation, and without any new duties.

[16] There was to be a halfpenny stamp on boxes of wooden matches, and a penny stamp on boxes of wax matches or fusees. It was expected that these duties would yield £550,000 the first year. Mr. Lowe invented a motto for the stamp—ex luce lucellum (“out of light a little profit”)—a classical pun, which, however, did not reconcile the people to his proposals.

[17] Mr. Lowe desirous of not putting more than 1-1/4d. in the £ on the income-tax, proposed to calculate it at 10s. 8d. per cent. This novel method of calculating the tax, which was not necessary when the round sum of 2d. in the £ was adopted, was unpopular because it was puzzling.

[18] Letters and Journals of W. Stanley Jevons, p. 252.

[19] The British Commissioners were Earl de Grey, whose services on the Commission were rewarded by his elevation to the Marquisate of Ripon, Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Montagu Bernard, and two distinguished Canadians.

[20] One arbitrator was to be chosen by the Queen and one by the President of the United States. The three others were to be nominated by the King of Italy, the President of the Swiss Republic, and the Emperor of Brazil.

[21] Lord Russell, however, took a personal rather than a Party view of the question. He could not forget that he was individually responsible for the occurrences and acrimonious despatches that had embittered Americans against England.

[22] “Not an inch of our territory, and not a stone of our fortresses.”

[23] Bismarck’s personal opinion of the terms of peace was that Germany asked too much or took too little. She should have either left France her territory, thereby depriving her of an incitement to revenge, or she should have broken and crushed her so utterly, that she must have been paralysed for a century. As it was, in spite of the heavy war-indemnity which Germany exacted, France in fifteen years recovered herself sufficiently to render her antagonism formidable, and as a standing inducement to a war of revenge, she had ever before her eyes the hope of recovering Alsace, Lorraine, and her lost fortresses.

[24] Bismarck would have let the French keep Metz for a milliard more of war-indemnity. Then with this money he would have built a fortress to mask it somewhere about Falkenberg, or towards Saarbrücken. “I do not like,” he said one day at dinner during the peace negotiations, “so many Frenchmen being in our house against their will.”—Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 631.

[25] The terms of peace proposed by Germany to France were an indemnity of six milliards of francs (£240,000,000), the cession of all Alsace, including Strasburg and Belfort, a third of Lorraine including Metz. The German Emperor, however, reduced the fine to five milliards. Von Bismarck induced the German generals to let France keep Belfort, in consideration of the French submitting to the triumphal march of the German troops through Paris as far as the Arc de Triomphe.

[26] The Agincourt, an ironclad of 6,000 tons, was run aground on the Pearl Rock, off Gibraltar, on the 2nd of July. The accident occurred in broad daylight. The court-martial blamed the captain, staff commander, and one of the lieutenants, but public opinion condemned Vice-Admiral Wellesley, whose signals had, it was said, caused the disaster. Mr. Goschen and the Lords of the Admiralty decided that the Admiral was to blame for ordering an unsafe course to be steered, and compelled him to strike his flag. The Megæra was a transport ship which had been sent to sea with her bottom honeycombed with rotten plates. On the 19th of June the captain had to beach her to save her crew. Yet the Admiralty officials had reported her quite seaworthy when her bottom was, as one of her officers said, “as full of holes as an old tea-kettle.”

[27] The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had been reorganised so as to constitute a competent Court of Appellate Jurisdiction for India and the Colonies. A certain number of judges was appointed to it, but the Act laid it down that it was necessary for a man to be a judge before he got one of these appointments. In November, 1871, Mr. Gladstone was desirous of promoting Sir Robert Collier, then Attorney-General. The Lord Chancellor accordingly made Sir Robert a Puisne Judge so as to give him a technical qualification, and then immediately appointed him to the Judicial Committee. It is only right to say that personally and professionally Sir Robert Collier was well qualified for the post.

[28] These were Mr. Peter Taylor, Professor Fawcett, and Sir Charles Dilke. The vote for it was 352, but half of the House was absent from the division which Mr. Taylor challenged. Mr. Taylor declared that the people were getting tired of the Monarchy. Sir Robert Peel suggested that if more money were granted to the Royal Family, it ought to go to the Prince of Wales, who was doing most of the Queen’s ceremonial duties. He had also the bad taste to sneer at the Queen’s alleged parsimony, and insinuated that she saved for her private purse the money voted to defray her State expenses.

[29] Some of the comments of the Press on the wedding were instructive. The Times said: “To-day a ray of sunshine will gladden every habitation in this island, and force its way even where uninvited. A daughter of the people, in the truest sense of that word, is to be married to one of ourselves. The mother is ours, the daughter is ours.” Vanity Fair, a “Society” journal, considered that it was “an additional claim of the dynasty on our loyalty that means should have been found to enable us to keep so charming a Princess in the country.” The Daily Telegraph, in describing the history of the marriage, said: “The old dragon Tradition was routed by a young sorcerer called Love, who laughs at precedents as heartily as at locksmiths, and has an equal contempt for etiquette and armour cap-à-pie.”

[30] “When the time came for putting on the ring, the bride took off her glove, which, with the bouquet, the Queen offered to take. The Princess, however, evidently did not observe the gracious attention, and handed them to Lady Florence Lennox, who let them drop. May this be an omen that flowers may strew the ground wherever the Princess’s future life may lead her!”—(Standard, 22nd March, 1871.)

[31] It may be worth while to note the precedents for marriage between English Princesses and subjects:—Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I., and widow of the King of Bohemia, was supposed to have privately married Lord Craven. Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII., married Charles Brandon, who was sent to escort her from France, when her husband Louis XII. died. Three of the daughters of Edward IV. married the heads of the families of Howard, Courtenay, and Welles; but though Henry VI. recognised these alliances, he did not quite recognise the title of Edward IV. Of the House of Hanover, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1766 married the widow of Earl Waldegrave, who was the illegitimate daughter of Sir Robert Walpole, a match which infuriated King George III. Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, in 1771 married Lady Anne Luttrell, daughter of Earl Carhampton, and widow of Mr. Charles Horton, of Catton Hall, Derbyshire. The Royal Marriage Act was passed in 1772, after which time there have been some Royal marriages with subjects in spite of the law: (1), The Duke of Sussex married first Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of Dunmore. After she died, his Royal Highness married his second wife, Lady Cecilia Letitia Buggin, daughter of Arthur, Earl of Arran, and afterwards Duchess of Inverness. (2), George IV., while Prince of Wales, married Mrs. FitzHerbert. (3), The present Duke of Cambridge married some years ago Mrs. FitzGeorge.

[32] This gave rise to a curious incident. A clerk by mistake had given the Minister the message meant for the Lords. When Mr. Gladstone read out the words “Her Majesty relies on the attachment of the House of Peers to concur,” the House buzzed with excitement, and the Tories wrathfully whispered to each other that some new insult had been devised by Mr. Gladstone for the Hereditary Chamber. Mr. Gladstone had to explain how the mistake had been made, before tranquillity could be restored.

[33] Mr. Bruce’s management of this affair did much to bring the Government into contempt. When the promoters of the meeting defied him he withdrew his prohibition. On being questioned in the House of Commons on the subject, he explained that when he issued it he thought that the meeting was called to petition Parliament, and no meeting can legally be held within a mile of Parliament for that purpose. But, he added, having found that the meeting was merely going to discuss the grant he considered it to be a legal one, and therefore withdrew his prohibition.

[34] Hodder’s Life of Lord Shaftesbury, Vol. III., p. 303.

[35] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 394.

[36] Daily Telegraph, 28th February, 1872.

[37] The boy was said to be a nephew of Feargus O’Connor, and was a clerk in an oil-shop in the Borough. He had tried to reach the Queen’s carriage on Thanksgiving Day, but the density of the crowd prevented him. O’Connor, curiously enough, was not a Fenian or a Catholic, but a Protestant youth who had turned crazy by reading “penny dreadfuls.” In April he was tried and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and twenty strokes with the birch. The Queen, who had long been desirous of bestowing medals for long and faithful domestic service in her employment, found in the attack by O’Connor an opportunity for carrying out her idea. Her personal attendants were Highland gillies from her Aberdeenshire estates. They had been most active in protecting her when she was menaced by O’Connor, and on John Brown, who had been more prominent than the others, her Majesty conferred this gold medal and an annuity of £25. Brown had been the Prince Consort’s favourite gillie, and, though his rough Northern manners were somewhat unprepossessing, his personal courage, stolid fidelity, shrewd judgment, and blunt honesty of speech, had rendered him a great favourite in the Queen’s family.

[38] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 393.

[39] England was admittedly not responsible for the escape of this vessel. But the Tribunal held that because a British Colony reinforced her crew at Melbourne after she carried the Confederate flag, responsibility accrued.

[40] The first Election under the Ballot was at Pontefract, when Mr. Childers was returned against Lord Pollington by a vote of 658 to 578—the registered Electors being 1,960. The Election was conducted with unusual order, and there was no bribery or intimidation, and less violence and drunkenness than usual.

[41] This Bill was, of course, much less drastic than the one which Mr. Bruce withdrew in 1871. It reduced the hours of sale, strengthened the hands of the authorities as regards supervision and the granting of new licences, but as a sop to the Liquor Trade it gave the well-conducted publican a kind of tenant-right by practically securing to him a renewal of his licence.

[42] Had an Admiral with good administrative ability been appointed Permanent Secretary to the department instead of Mr. Lushington, the collapse of Mr. Childers’ scheme, when he was invalided, might have been averted.

[43] Sir Massey Lopes desired that the cost of administering justice, and the Lunacy and Police Acts—then charged on the rates—should be thrown on the Consolidated Fund, i.e., transferred from the ratepayer to the tax-payer. The county members on both sides objected to the whole system of rating which fell not on personal, but real property, and which threw on rates the cost of doing work which was done not merely for the locality, but for the community at large. The Ministry maintained that it was impossible to give effect to Sir Massey Lopes’ ideas till the whole question of Local Government and Rating was taken up and settled on a sound basis.

[44] The limit of abatement was also raised from incomes of £200 to £300, and the abatement itself from £60 to £80. The duty on coffee and chicory was reduced, and shops and warehouses were exempted from house-tax.

[45] This was founded on the 19th of May, 1870, in the Bilton Hotel, Sackville Street, Dublin. The chief Conservatives present were Mr. Purdon (Lord Mayor of Dublin), Mr. Kinahan (Ex-High Sheriff of Dublin), Major Knox (proprietor of the Irish Times), and Captain (afterwards Colonel) King-Harman. Mr. Butt moved the chief resolution, which was unanimously carried, affirming that “The true remedy for the evils of Ireland is the establishment of an Irish Parliament with full control over our domestic affairs.”

[46] Lord Russell in this letter, says:—“It appears to me that if Ireland were to be allowed to elect a Representative Assembly for each of its four Provinces of Leinster, Ulster, Munster, and Connaught, and if Scotland in a similar manner were to be divided into Lowlands and Highlands, having for each Province a Representative Assembly, the local wants of Ireland and Scotland might be better provided for than they are at present.” There was reason to suppose that the Birmingham School of Radicals in 1886 had almost summoned up courage to adopt the Home Rule scheme which the veteran Whig statesman propounded in 1872.

[47] Burma, As it Was, As it Is, and As it Will Be. By J. George Scott (“Shway Yoe”). London: Redway, 1886-7. P. 34.

[48] The British representative at Mandalay, besides complaining of perpetual encroachments on the Arakan frontier, declared that he was not allowed to see the King of Burma unless he took off his shoes and sat before him on the floor in his stockings.

[49] See a letter written by Mr. Hayward to Mr. Gladstone, in the correspondence of Mr. Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 252.

[50] What their motive was for this act has not yet been clearly stated. It was said at the time that they thought by opposing it to induce the Protestants to let it pass. Their opposition, however, as explained by themselves, was (1), The Bill did not endow a Catholic University. The Tories had promised to do so in 1866, and therefore the Catholics might profitably wait till Mr. Disraeli returned to power. (2), The Bill, by endowing Professorships of academical subjects—not including History and Philosophy—was really one for founding a new “Godless college.” (3), Other students than those trained in affiliated colleges—scholars educated by private study, in fact—were admitted to degrees. (4), As the constitution of the new University stood, the Catholics would have to wait for many years ere they could command even a large minority in the new University constituency.

[51] They were Mr. Fawcett, Mr. Horsman, who had approved of the Bill at first, Mr. Bouverie, Mr. McCullagh Torrens, Mr. Aytoun, Mr. Akroyd, Mr. Foster, Mr. Auberon Herbert, and Mr. Whalley.

[52] These clauses do not seem to have been essential to the main object in view, which was to give the Catholics a chance of getting University degrees of high status, and a fair share of the University endowments of the nation. The new “Godless” chairs were not needed if the Catholics did not want them, for the Protestants could always get their instruction in Trinity College.

[53] Sir William Stirling Maxwell was a representative of the most popular phase of Toryism, and in a special sense reflected the mind of his party in hankering after Lord Derby as a leader. Writing to Mr. Hayward in September, 1872, he says of Lord Derby:—“I know no man whose daily talk reflects more constantly the good sense and fairness of his speeches. It is some consolation to those who still believe that Conservatism may have some backbone left to have a prospective leader with so much ballast in his character.” The Conservatives did not trust Mr. Disraeli’s Conservatism even in 1873, just because they suspected it lacked backbone and ballast.

[54] Mr. Gladstone combined this office with that of the Premiership. Sir Robert Walpole, Lord North, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Canning, and Sir Robert Peel had each held the two offices simultaneously.

[55] For example, in 1873 the Public Accounts showed a Postal expenditure of £5,000,000; but then, on the other side of the ledger, the nation was credited with £5,000,000 of receipts earned by the Post-office. The Tory financial critics could not be got to see that the only right way of comparing the real expenditure of a Government at any two selected dates is to deduct from the gross sum moneys which come in aid of outlay, and which are yet not taxes, and then compare the results.

[56] Mr. Disraeli’s Government need not be blamed too harshly for letting the Army alone. Till the fall of the Second Empire Parliament would probably not have voted the money or passed the measures necessary to put an end to the chaotic confusion and Crimean inefficiency of the military system under which orators used to declare “British troops had ever marched to victory.” But Mr. Corry, Mr. Disraeli’s First Lord of the Admiralty, had no such excuse for his neglect to build first-class ironclads. Even the Manchester Radicals would have voted him the money for that purpose had he been courageous enough to confess what was the truth, namely, that when he took office the British Navy was behind the age, and as a fighting force pitiably weak and obsolete. Another costly blunder was committed by Mr. Corry. He had not firmness enough to silence clamorous claims for commissions. Hence he over-officered the Navy, till it almost seemed at one time as if he meant to man his line-of-battle ships with his redundant admirals and his superfluous captains.

[57] This was due, however, not so much to the action of the Government as to the falling-in of terminable annuities, which reduced the charges for the National Debt.

[58] Of course the Queen cannot prevent a man from receiving a Foreign decoration, and he can wear it in Society without incurring prosecution, just as he might, if vulgar enough, wear a masonic star of the cheeseplate order of architecture on his breast. But he cannot wear it at Court, and the grievance of the British snob is that the Queen’s objection to his accepting a Foreign Order prevents Foreign Governments—except semi-barbarous ones—from bestowing it on him. Queen Elizabeth said that “she did not like her dogs to wear any collar but her own.” It is not so generally known that the Queen’s grandfather, George III., whose metaphors were usually of a more pastoral character than those of the great Tudor Princess, expressed the same feeling when he said that he “liked his sheep to wear his own mark.”

[59] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 308.

[60] If, for example, the Prince of Wales and his children died, the Duke of Edinburgh would have succeeded him. The succession to the English throne, unlike that to most European Sovereignties, is governed by the same law which regulates the succession to all Scottish dignities and most of the very ancient English baronies, namely, descent is to heirs general, male or female; but then all males must be exhausted ere the right of the females accrues. Thus the Duke stood before his elder sisters and their families in the line of succession.

[61] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, pp. 317 and 318.

[62] This was the letter to “My dear Grey,” in which Mr. Disraeli accused the Ministry of a policy of “blundering and plundering.” As they were in power solely because he had refused office, the attack of course recoiled on his own party.

[63] A Selection from the Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 254.

[64] It was unjustly said that Mr. Gladstone offered to abolish the Income Tax as an electoral bribe. The fact was that he was under a recorded pledge to Parliament to take off the Income Tax when the finances admitted of its repeal. That was the condition on which he had been allowed to impose it when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1853. As the vast majority of the electors were not Income Tax payers, the proposal could not possibly be an effective electoral bribe.

[65] Another difficulty for the Independent Elector was that of seeing how Mr. Gladstone could abolish the Income Tax. Mr. Disraeli, who soon began to repent his haste in trying to outbid Mr. Gladstone on this point, suggested that difficulty in a speech at Newton Pagnell. He did not withdraw from his declaration that he desired to get rid of the Income Tax. But, he said, “If Mr. Gladstone asks me ‘are you prepared to repeal the Income Tax by means of imposing other taxes?’ I am bound to say it is not a policy I should recommend.” Mr. Gladstone never divulged his plan. It is, however, obvious that he could have easily got rid of the worst features of the Income Tax by readjusting the House Duty. A House Duty, Mr. Mill said, is the fairest of all direct taxes, and a man’s house-rent is—with certain exceptions—a sure guide to his means and substance. If, for example, Mr. Gladstone had put 1s. 6d. in the £ on all houses above £10 rental, or if he had graduated the duties from 4d. to 3s. in the £ on rentals of from £10 to over £300, he could have supplied the place of the Income Tax which yielded £4,875,000. The difference would have been this—that a man with £200 of income, presumably paying £25 a year for his house, would—less 9d. of existing house duty—have paid at the 1s. 6d. rate 18s. 9d. a year of “a means and substance” tax on his rent, instead of the £2 10s. he then paid in Income Tax. The relief of local rates might have been obtained by handing over the old House Tax or a portion of it to the local authorities.

[66] Mr. Clare Sewell Read was made Secretary to the Local Government Board, of which Mr. Sclater-Booth was made President. Sir M. Hicks-Beach became Irish Secretary. Sir H. Selwin Ibbetson was Under-Secretary at the Home Office. Mr. R. Bourke was Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Lord Sandon was Vice-President of the Council, Lord George Hamilton was Under-Secretary for India, Sir C. Adderley President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Algernon Egerton Secretary to the Admiralty, and Lord Henry Lennox Chief Commissioner of Works.

[67] Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 258.

[68] It was supposed that Mr. Disraeli would prevent the inevitable grammatical blunder from creeping into the Queen’s Speech. But it crept in here, greatly to the delight of the pedants. They pointed out that it was wrong to speak of “the recent Act of Parliament affecting the relationship of master and servant.” The word cannot be used, they argued, instead of relation, to denote a relative position which is temporary or official.

[69] To those who had the advantage of taking no personal interest in these transactions, Mr. Gladstone’s statement reads like the apology of a Minister who was “riding for a fall.” He was admittedly pledged to the House of Commons since 1853, to abolish the Income Tax when he had a sufficient surplus. Instead of redeeming his pledge in 1874 to the House, he took it to an electorate that had no existence in 1853, and who, even if they had been competent to the task, could not have given a fair decision on such a point in the turmoil of elections which seemed purposely hurried through in a few days. Mr. Gladstone, moreover, never defended his proposal at length. Had he really desired to carry it, he would have submitted it to Parliament—for the House of Lords, whose hostility he affected to dread, could not constitutionally have meddled with it—and then if, after exhaustive discussion in the Commons it had been defeated, he could have appealed to a nation sufficiently instructed by that discussion to pronounce a rational opinion on the question. As it was, the matter hardly entered into the election controversies of 1874 at all.

[70] “We find,” said Mr. Hardy, “the stores so full and efficient that we can dispense with the payment of £100,000 on this head.” As to arms, he remarked that “in a few weeks the whole of the infantry will, I hope, have the Martini-Henry rifle. By to-morrow there will be 140,000 Martini-Henry rifles in store, and during the year there will be a further number of 40,000 provided.” After dilating on the abundance of ammunition in stock and the sufficiency of the Reserves, Mr. Hardy said of the Volunteers that the original number of them was 199,000, “far, however, from efficient men,” whereas the number in 1874, though only 153,000, consisted of thoroughly efficient men, who were “far more worth having than what formerly existed.” The fortifications, he said, were of “the most efficient character.” He even praised the Intelligence Department, the formation of which had been a favourite subject of denunciation by the Tory “Colonels.”

[71] The most curious result of this reform was the increase which took place in pauper lunacy. Sir Stafford Northcote, in fact, offered Boards of Guardians the strongest temptation to get their senile paupers quartered on the State as pauper lunatics. All that was necessary for that purpose was a certificate from a pliable medical officer.

[72] The hours against which the publicans had agitated were twelve in London, and in other places any hour between five and seven in the morning, till any hour between ten and twelve at night, as the magistrates might decide.

[73] Mr. Cross held that the extension of the hours from twelve to half-past twelve at night was not a real extension. Under the former rule the publican had “grace” given him to clear his bar. Under Mr. Cross’s Bill closing was imperative at half-past twelve. Then Mr. Cross put a stop to certain public-houses being kept open to one in the morning, which Mr. Bruce had allowed, and the fixing of the hours at ten and eleven, in very many cases, led to further restrictions.

[74] Life of Norman Macleod, D.D., Vol. II., p. 325.

[75] Times, October 1, 1874.

[76] Prince Arthur was the first of his line who took as his superior dignity a title from Ireland. Several Princes and Princesses of England bore Irish titles, e.g., the Queen herself is Countess of Clare, but they were secondary ones, and denominated inferior dignities.

[77] Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 321.