on the pier. His Majesty arrived at Charing Cross in the evening, and London forthwith went mad about him. It talked and thought about nothing else, much to the disgust of the Tory wirepullers, who saw with sorrow the scandal of the Zanzibar mail contract absolutely wasted on a frivolous metropolis. It may be recorded that when he appeared the Shah disappointed sightseers, who were looking out for the black velvet tunic powdered with diamonds, and ornamented with epaulettes of emeralds. His Majesty, in fact, was clad in a blue military frock-coat, faced with rows of brilliants and large rubies; his belt and the scabbard of his scimitar were likewise bright with jewels, and so was his cap.
The suite of apartments placed at the disposal of his Imperial Majesty in Buckingham Palace had been put in direct telegraphic communication with Teheran, and though it was expected he would be impressed by being able to talk to anybody in his capital without leaving his room, the arrangement seemed rather to bore him than otherwise. An infinite variety of entertainments was prepared for him, and the programme he had to work through seemed too extensive for human endurance during the last ten days of his visit. On the 20th of June the Queen, who was at Balmoral when he arrived, came to Windsor to receive the Persian monarch in State.
The preparations for the Shah’s public welcome were worthy of the Royal borough. As the train steamed into Windsor Station, the Princes and others in waiting to receive him welcomed him as he stepped out, arrayed in a State uniform flashing with gems. The Mayor and Recorder then read an Address, to which the Shah briefly replied, both the Address and reply being translated by Sir Henry Rawlinson. Accompanied by Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold he was driven to the Castle, where the Queen received him. The reception was held in the White Drawing Room, and the Shah conferred upon the Queen the Persian Order, and also the new Order which he had then, with a gallantry hardly to be expected of an Asiatic, just instituted for ladies. Luncheon was served in the Oak Room, after which the Queen accompanied her guest to the foot of the staircase on his leaving the Castle.
In the evening a splendid entertainment was given to his Majesty by the Lord Mayor at Guildhall, to which 3,000 persons were invited. At this banquet the Shah was placed on a daïs with the Princess of Wales, the Lord Mayor on his left hand, and the Czarevna, wife of the Czarewitch, on his right. The Shah wore a blue uniform with a belt of diamonds, and the ribbon and Star of the Garter, which had been conferred on him at Windsor in the afternoon. The scene at the ball which followed was unusually brilliant and picturesque. When the Shah had taken his seat the first quadrille was formed. He did not dance, but when the company had gone through four dances he joined the supper-party. About midnight his Majesty and the Royal Family left the scene. This magnificent entertainment was the first of many. The Shah was hurried in rapid succession to a Review of Artillery at Woolwich, and another of the Fleet at Spithead, to a State performance at the Italian Opera, to the International Exhibition, to a concert in the Royal Albert Hall, and to a Review in Windsor Park of 8,000 troops. At this Review what impressed him most were the batteries of Light Artillery, the physique and drill of the Highlanders, and the brilliant skirmishing of the Rifles. When the spectacle was over he presented his scimitar to the Duke of Cambridge. An odd sight was witnessed when the Shah visited the West India Dock and Greenwich on the 25th of June. He went in an open carriage from Buckingham Palace to the Tower Wharf, and embarked amidst a salvo of artillery. The river was filled with an extraordinary collection of ships, barges, boats, and vessels of every description. Crowds, cheering and shouting like crazy beings, swarmed on decks, rigging, wharves, roadways, and even on the roofs and crane stages of the warehouses. A striking effect was produced during this trip by the floating steam fire-engines of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, which, closely lashed together, all at once saluted the Shah as he passed, by casting up many perpendicular jets of water to a great height in the air. On the evening of this day, by command of the Queen, a State ball was given at Buckingham Palace, at which the Persian Sovereign and the British Princes and Princesses were present. After a short visit to Liverpool, the Shah left England on the 5th of July, no abatement having taken place in the entertainments in his honour up to the last.
The Shah’s departure from London, and his embarkation for Cherbourg on board the French Government yacht Rapide, was the final act of these remarkable proceedings. He was accompanied to the Victoria Station by the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Arthur, the Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Christian, all in full uniform. The Shah having been made a Knight of the Garter during his visit to England, her Majesty presented him with the badge and collar set in diamonds. He in turn gave his photograph set in diamonds to the Queen and the Prince of Wales. To Earl Granville he offered his jewelled portrait, but that wily diplomatist, knowing what was meant, demurely said he could only accept the portrait if the precious stones were removed from it. London never had such a lion before or since, and the fuss made over him led many to imagine that his visit was of high political importance. It was certainly odd that the heir to the Russian throne, who must have been satiated with the Shah’s society in St. Petersburg, persisted in being seen everywhere in his train in London. Perhaps at his interview with Lord Granville he had asked for some promise of protection against Russian encroachment, and as it was impossible for Russia to conquer the Tekke Turcomans unless she could draw her supplies from the Golden Province of Khorassan, such a promise, if given and kept, would have effectually barred the march of the Cossack towards Herat. If these matters were talked of, events subsequently showed that no such promises had been made, and that Lord Granville, like his predecessors, firmly adhered to the fatal policy initiated by England in order to buy the aid of the Czar against Napoleon I.—the policy of abandoning Persia to Russian “influence.”
It was semi-officially announced in the middle of July that the Duke of Edinburgh had been betrothed (11th July) to the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, the only daughter of the Czar of Russia. The affair had been the subject of some difficult and delicate negotiations, not so much because there was some difference of religion between the bride and bridegroom, but because, being an only daughter, the parents of the Grand Duchess felt that parting with her would be a bitter heart-wrench. She was devoted to her father, as he was to her, and it was said that if he had given his crown to the English Prince he could not have testified more strongly his esteem for him than he had done by bestowing on him his daughter’s hand. “I hear,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse from Seeheim (9th July), to the Queen, “Affie [the Duke of Edinburgh] comes on Thursday night. Poor Marie is very happy, and so quiet.... How I feel for the parents, this only daughter (a character of Hingebung [perfect devotion] to those she loves)—the last child entirely at home, as the parents are so much away that the two youngest, on account of their studies, no longer travel about.”[59]
This alliance was unusually interesting, for the Duke of Edinburgh was practically within the Royal succession.[60] Nothing but an Act of Parliament barring him from the succession, such as men talked of passing against the hated Duke of Cumberland, who conspired with the loyal Orangemen of Ulster to oust the Queen from the throne, could prevent the Duke from succeeding to the Crown if the Prince of Wales and his children did not survive the Queen. There was a very general feeling that this marriage was worthy of the country. Apart from her great wealth, the only daughter of the Czar of All the Russias appeared to the average British elector to be a much more fitting mate for a Prince who stood very near the English throne, than an impecunious young lady from a minor Teutonic “dukery”—if we may venture to borrow a term which Lord Beaconsfield made classical. Thoughtful observers of public life were grateful to the Queen for establishing a precedent which enlarged the area of matrimonial selection for English Princes. Since the reign of George II. this had been so closely limited to Germany, that the Royal Family of England from generation to generation had been purely and exclusively German. There was, therefore, no popular outcry against a Parliamentary settlement for the Duke of Edinburgh. Mr. Gladstone, on the 29th
of July, carried a resolution in the House of Commons, giving the Duke of Edinburgh an annuity of £25,000 a year, and securing to the Grand Duchess Marie £6,000 a year of jointure in the event of her becoming a widow. The Minister was not met with any formidable opposition. When Mr. Holt and Mr. Newdegate began to attack the Grand Duchess’s religion, the House instantly flew into a passion and hooted them into silence. When the resolution was debated two days afterwards, Mr. Taylor, who objected to the vote on the ground that the bride was one of the richest heiresses in Europe, was literally effaced by Mr. Gladstone. Amid deafening cheers from all parts of the House, he asked Mr. Taylor if he dared to stand up before his own constituents and beg the Russian Czar to accept a poor English Prince for a son-in-law on the plea that his daughter had a large fortune? The grant was carried by a vote of 170 to 20.
The marriage itself was solemnised on the 23rd of January, 1874, at the Czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in accordance with the Greek and the Anglican rite. All that wealth and absolute power could do to invest the ceremony with Imperial pomp and splendour was done. Among those invited were members of the Holy Synod, and of the High Clergy of Russia; the members of the Council of the Empire, Senators, Ambassadors, and other members of the Corps Diplomatique, with the ladies of their families, general officers, officers of the Guard, of the Army and Navy. The great Russian ladies wore the national costume, while the nobles and gentlemen were in full uniform. The Queen of England was represented by Viscount Sydney and Lady Augusta Stanley. On their arrival at the church the Duke and Grand Duchess took their places in front of the altar, where were standing the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and the chief priests, attired in magnificent vestments. The Czar and Czarina were on the right of the altar, the Prince of Wales and the Russian Grand Dukes standing opposite. The most interesting portions of the ceremony were the handing of the rings to the bride and bridegroom, the crowning of the Royal couple, and the procession of the newly wedded pair, with the Metropolitan and clergy, Prince Arthur, and the Grand Dukes round the analogion or lectern, the bride and bridegroom carrying lighted candles in their left hands. On the conclusion of this part of the ceremony, the bride and bridegroom proceeded to the Salle d’Alexandre, where the Anglican ceremony was performed by Dean Stanley, the bride being given away by the Emperor, while Prince Arthur officiated as his brother’s groomsman. The Duke of Edinburgh and the Grand Duchess Marie used prayer books which had been sent to them by the Queen, and the Grand Duchess carried a bouquet of myrtle from the bush at Osborne, which had been so often laid under tribute for the marriages of the Queen’s children. The wedding-day was celebrated in the principal towns of Great Britain with much popular rejoicing.
The Queen deeply regretted her inability to be present at a ceremony so interesting to her, and, in some respects, momentous for her House. Nor was she the only member of the Royal circle who entertained the same feeling. Her daughter, the Princess Louis of Hesse, writing to her from Darmstadt on the 23rd of January, 1874, says, “On our dear Affie’s [Prince Alfred’s] birthday, a few tender words. It must seem so strange to you not to be near him. My thoughts are constantly with them all, and we have only the Times account, for no one writes here. They are all too busy, and, of course, all news comes to you. What has Augusta [Lady Augusta Stanley] written, and Vicky and Bertie? Any extracts or other newspaper accounts but what we see would be most welcome.... God bless and protect them, and may all turn out well.” Artless passages like these are worth quoting, if for no better reason than this, that they illustrate the strength of the sentiment of domesticity which has not only bound the Royal children to the Queen, but to each other, all through life. Even after the Queen had complied with her daughter’s request, and sent her some letters about the ceremony, the Princess recurs to the same theme, saying, “Dear Marie [the Duchess of Edinburgh] seems to make the same impression on all. How glad I am she is so quite what I thought and hoped. Such a wife must make Affie happy, and do him good, and be a great pleasure to yourself, which I always liked to think.” And again, a few days later, she writes to the Queen as follows:—“I have a little time before breakfast to thank you so much for the enclosures, also the Dean’s [Stanley’s] letter through Beatrice. We are most grateful for being allowed to hear these most interesting reports. It brings everything so much nearer. How pleasant it is to receive only satisfactory reports.”[61]
The Grand Duchess, when she came to her new home, brought her own weather with her. She was introduced by the Queen to London and the Londoners on the 12th of March, in the midst of a bleak and blinding snowstorm. That dense crowds of people should line the street, and stand for hours in the half-frozen slush, for an opportunity of bidding the Grand Duchess welcome to her new home, afforded an impressive testimony to the deep-seated loyalty of the capital. The Queen, the Grand Duchess, the Duke of Edinburgh, and other members of the Royal Family, left Windsor Castle at 11 o’clock in closed carriages for the railway station, under a brilliant escort of Scots Greys. The Royal train steamed to Paddington terminus, which was all ablaze with Russian and English colours. The people thronged the windows, balconies, the house-tops, and the pavements, and each side of the roadway, all along from Paddington to Buckingham Palace, and the Queen and the Royal couple showed their appreciation of the splendid reception which was given to them by braving the snowstorm in an open landau. The Queen, who was dressed in half-mourning, smilingly bowed in acknowledgment of the hearty cheering, and the Grand Duchess, who sat by her side, attired in a purple velvet mantle edged with fur, a pale blue silk dress and white bonnet, was evidently surprised at the warm greeting she received. The route was lined by the military and police. The streets were full of loyal but bedraggled decorations, and grimly festive with limp flags and illegible mottoes. Nothing could be more gracious than the smiling demeanour of the Queen and her new daughter-in-law, and nothing more pitiable than the obvious discomfort of the poor ladies-in-waiting, who sat palpably shivering in their carriages. At night the chief thoroughfares were brilliantly illuminated. “I hope,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse to the Queen, “you were not the worse for all your exertions.... Such a warm reception must have touched Marie, and shown how the English cling to their Sovereign and her House.” Yet, after the first flush of excitement had passed away, the Russian Princess began to suffer from the common complaint of all Northern women—nostalgia, or home-sickness. “Marie must feel it very deeply,” writes the Princess Louis to the Queen (7th April), “for to leave so delicate and loving a mother must seem almost wrong. How strange this side of human nature always seems—leaving all you love most, know best, owe all debts of gratitude to, for the comparatively unknown! The lot of parents is indeed hard, and of such self-sacrifice.” This incident seems to have led to a curious correspondence between the Queen and her daughter, in which her Majesty apparently gave her some solemn warnings about the evil done by parents who bring up their daughters for the sole purpose of marrying them. “This,” observes the Princess Louis in her reply to her
mother, “is said to be a too prominent feature in the modern English education of the higher classes.... I want to bring up the girls without seeking this as the sole object for the future—to feel that they can fill up their lives so well otherwise.... A marriage for the sake of marriage is surely the greatest mistake a woman can make.... I know what an absorbing feeling that of devotion to one’s parent is. When I was at home it filled my whole soul. It does still in a great degree, and heimweh [home-sickness] does not cease after so long an absence.”
Questions of the Recess—The Dissenters and the Education Act—Mr. Forster’s Compromise—The Nonconformist Revolt—Mr. Bright Essays Conciliation—Sudden Popularity of Mr. Lowe—His “Anti-puritanic Nature”—Mr. Chamberlain and the Dissidence of Dissent—Decline of the Liberal Party—Signs of Bye-elections—A Colonial Scandal—The Canadian Pacific Railway—Jobbing the Contract—Action of the Dominion Parliament—Expulsion of the Macdonald Ministry—The Ashanti War—How it Originated—A Short Campaign—The British in Coomassie—Treaty with King Koffee—The Opposition and the War—Skilful Tactics—Discontent among the Radical Ranks—Illness of Mr. Gladstone—A Sick-bed Resolution—Appeal to the Country—Mr. Gladstone’s Address—Mr. Disraeli’s Manifesto—Liberal Defeat—Incidents of the Election—“Villadom” to the Front—Mr. Gladstone’s Resignation—Mr. Disraeli’s Working Majority—The Conservative Cabinet—The Surplus of £6,000,000—What will Sir Stafford do with it?—Dissensions among the Liberal Chiefs—Mr. Gladstone and the Leadership—The Queen’s Speech—Mr. Disraeli and the Fallen Minister—The Dangers of Hustings Oratory—Mr. Ward Hunt’s “Paper Fleet”—The Last of the Historic Surpluses—How Sir S. Northcote Disposed of it—The Hour but not the Man—Mr. Cross’s Licensing Bill—The Public Worship Regulation Bill—A Curiously Composed Opposition—Mr. Disraeli on Lord Salisbury—The Scottish Patronage Bill—Academic Debates on Home Rule—The Endowed Schools Bill—Mr. Stansfeld’s Rating Bill—Bill for Consolidating the Factory Acts—End of the Session—The Successes and Failures of the Ministry—Prince Bismarck’s Contest with the Roman Catholic Church—Arrest of Count Harry Arnim—Mr. Disraeli’s Apology to Prince Bismarck—Mr. Gladstone’s Desultory Leadership—“Vaticanism”—Deterioration in Society—An Unopposed Royal Grant—Visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Birmingham—Withdrawal of the Duchess of Edinburgh from Court—A Dispute over Precedence—Visit of the Czar to England—Review of the Ashanti War Soldiers and Sailors—The Queen on Cruelty to Animals—Sir Theodore Martin’s Biography of the Prince Consort—The Queen tells the Story of its Authorship.
Two questions disturbed the recess of 1873-74—would Mr. Gladstone attempt to conciliate the Dissenters, and would Mr. Bright, at their bidding, denounce the Education Act which had been recently passed by a Government of which he was a leading and authoritative member?
The great grievance of the Dissenters was, that the 25th Clause of the Education Act sanctioned the payment of denominational school-fees for pauper children out of the school-rate. The Dissenters argued that it was as wicked to make them pay rates for Anglican teaching in a school, as it was to make them pay tithes for it in a church. Their opposition was mainly led and organised by Mr. Chamberlain and the Birmingham Secularists, who had so effectually made war on the Liberal Party at bye-elections, that even Mr. Forster deemed it prudent to conciliate them early in 1873. He offered them a compromise in his Education Amendment Act, which passed before Parliament rose. This Act repealed the 25th Clause, which ordered the payment out of the school rate of fees for pauper children in denominational schools. Instead of that it compelled Boards of Guardians to pay the fees to the indigent parent, leaving it to him to select a school for his child. He might choose a denominational school if he preferred it, only it must be an efficient school under Government inspection. This compromise had, however, been rejected by Mr. Chamberlain, who also complained bitterly that Mr. Forster refused to make the formation of School Boards compulsory in every parish. Nor was the bitterness of the Nonconformists assuaged by an indiscreet speech which Mr. Gladstone had made during the recess at Hawarden, in which he advised the people of that parish to be content with their Church Schools, and not to elect a School Board. The attempts which were made to explain away this speech were not successful, and so when Mr. Bright came before his constituents at Birmingham, he found the Dissenters in open revolt. He therefore deemed it prudent to condemn the Education Act, and oppose Mr. Forster’s Education policy. As he had joined a Cabinet in which Mr. Forster held high rank, Mr. Bright’s utterances on the subject did the Government more harm than good. The Dissenters put no faith in them, because, they said, amidst all the Ministerial changes that had occurred, Mr. Forster was still at the Education Office. Independent supporters of the Ministry were, on the other hand, surprised to find a statesman of Mr. Bright’s reputation condemning on high moral principles an Act which he had himself helped to pass only a year before. Mr. Bright’s unfortunate position was further aggravated by the defence which was put forward on his behalf. It was contended that he had no responsibility for Mr. Forster’s Education Act. All he had seen was the draft of the Bill, and of that he had, as a Cabinet Minister, formed a favourable impression. But his illness had withdrawn him from active work, and when the measure was passing through the House of Commons evil changes, it was argued, were made in it, and for these Mr. Bright could not be blamed. Unfortunately it was written in the inexorable chronicles of Hansard that the only changes made in the Bill were all in favour of the Dissenters. Mr. Bright was accordingly too clearly responsible for the original measure, which was infinitely more odious to the Nonconformists than the one that was finally passed, and which he now disowned and denounced on account of its injustice.
Curiously enough, it was Mr. Lowe who was most successful in winning popularity for the Ministry during the recess. The police found in him a zealous defender. The working-classes heard with pleased surprise a rumour to the effect that he had drafted a Bill conceding the demand of Trade Unionists for a reform of the Labour Laws. His manner of receiving deputations had suddenly become bland and suave. When, for example, the representatives of the Licensed Victuallers went to complain to him of the Licensing Laws, he was so sympathetic that the leader of the deputation sent a graphic account of the interview to the Press. He explained how he and his colleagues had waited on the new Home Secretary in fear and trembling, but how delighted they were to find that “the great scholar and debater cheered the meeting with many sunny glimpses of his own Anti-puritanic nature.”
Still, in spite of Mr. Bright and Mr. Lowe, the Liberal cause was waning among the electors. Every day Mr. Chamberlain was driving deeper and deeper into the heart of the Liberal Party the wedge of Dissenting dissension, that ultimately split its electoral organisation in twain. On the whole, the bye-elections favoured the Conservatives. But Mr. Henry James, the new Attorney-General, carried Taunton, and Captain Hayter, owing to an imprudent letter which Mr. Disraeli wrote in support of the Tory candidate, was successful at Bath.[62]
A Colonial scandal and a Colonial war also attracted much attention during the recess, and though the scandal did not affect the Ministry, the war somewhat chilled the sympathies of many of their strongest supporters.
The story of the scandal was as follows:—The Canadian Government had decided to construct a Pacific Railway that would bridge the wildernesses by which Nature had separated those Provinces, which were united by the British North American Act. The project was deemed so hopeless as a commercial undertaking that the money to carry it on could not be raised. But during the negotiations which ended in the Treaty of Washington, Canada, at the instance of the British Commissioners, made certain concessions, in return for which the British Government undertook to guarantee a loan for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The money was then raised without delay, and Sir Hugh Allen, the richest capitalist in Canada, formed a syndicate, who applied for and obtained the contract for constructing the railway from the Government of Sir John Macdonald, which then held office in the Dominion. It was soon alleged that Sir John Macdonald and his colleagues in the Canadian Cabinet had been bribed to “job” away the contract into Sir Hugh Allen’s hands. The Canadian House of Commons believed in the charge, insisted on an investigation, and appointed a Committee of Inquiry. Vigorous efforts were made to hush up the scandal, and by means of the veto of the Crown the Committee was paralysed. An Act authorising it to examine witnesses on oath was passed by the Dominion Parliament, but was vetoed by the Crown on technical grounds. The Members of the Opposition, however, defeated this attempt to stifle effective inquiry, by refusing to serve on what they declared would be a sham tribunal, and public opinion was so incensed that the Government were compelled to appoint to the vacant seats in the Committee persons of high judicial position. When under examination by the Commissioners Sir Hugh Allen admitted that he paid Sir John Macdonald £36,000 in order to secure the election of candidates pledged to support his Ministry in the Canadian Parliament. Sir John Macdonald and his colleagues admitted that they received this money, and that they had used it to carry seats in the Province of Ontario for their faction. After the money was paid the contract was given to Sir Hugh Allen. But in this transaction Sir John Macdonald denied that there was any taint of bribery. Like his celebrated countryman, Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, he said, “Dinna ca’t breebery. It ’s juist geenerosity on the ae haun’, an’ grawtitude on the ither.” In Canada and England a different view was taken of the matter. The Macdonald Ministry was driven from office amidst public execration, and even Lord Dufferin the Governor-General, and the Colonial Office did not escape censure, when it became clear that they were at least privy to the matter.
The Colonial war broke out on the West Coast of Africa. In consideration of being permitted to annex as much of Sumatra as they could subdue, the Dutch had handed over to England their possessions on the West Coast of
Africa. The English Government soon became involved in a dispute with the King of the Ashantis over a subvention which the Dutch had always paid him. The Ashantis attacked the English settlements near Elmina, but were beaten off by a small party of English troops. When the cool season came it was decided to send Sir Garnet Wolseley with an expedition strong enough to march to Coomassie, the Ashanti capital, and, if need be, lay the country waste. Sir Garnet arrived before his troops, and engaged with success in several unimportant skirmishes. The main army left England in December, and on the 5th of February, 1874, it entered Coomassie in triumph. The place was so unhealthy that it had to be evacuated almost immediately. But ere the troops left a Treaty was signed by which King Koffee renounced his claim to sovereignty over the tribes who had been transferred from the Dutch to the British Protectorate. The management of the expedition was not perfect. But it at all events showed that the administrative departments of the Army had improved somewhat since the Crimean War, and that whilst the English private soldier had lost none of his superb fighting qualities, he was now led by officers possessed of a considerable degree of professional skill. And yet the Ashanti War failed to arrest the decay of public confidence in the Government. With masterly tact the Tory leaders put forward Lord Derby to deprecate wasteful military enterprises and extensions of territory in pestilential climes, whilst Sir Stafford Northcote attacked the Ministry fiercely in September for engaging in such a war without consulting the House of Commons. The effect of this criticism was soon manifest. The sympathies of a large section of the Radicals and of the entire Peace Party were alienated from the Ministry, who now found the arguments they had used to embarrass Mr. Disraeli during the Abyssinian War, turned against themselves. Mr. Bright, in joining a Cabinet which waged a costly war on some wretched African savages without the consent of Parliament, sacrificed the last remnant of authority which his inconsistent attitude to the Education Act had left him. Nor did he regain this authority by writing a letter early in January, in which he expressed an opinion that all difficulties with Ashanti might be settled by arbitration. As the country was actually at war with King Koffee, Mr. Bright’s suggestion was taken to mean that England should, by an act of surrender, pave the way for arbitration between herself and the Ashantis. This could not possibly be the opinion of the Government which was vigorously prosecuting the war, and it was clear that on this subject, as on the Education question, there was chaos in the Cabinet. In these circumstances the question came to be would Ministers dissolve, or would they meet Parliament and attempt to regain popularity through the work of a reconstructed Cabinet, whose latest and most influential recruit never spoke in public without showing that, when he did not abandon his principles, he was at variance with his colleagues? Various rumours were current as to a conflict of opinion on the subject between Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues and the Queen. Ultimately it was decided that there should be no dissolution before spring.
Worn with anxiety, irritated by the failure of his plans for recovering popularity through a reconstruction of his Cabinet, sick in body and mind, the Prime Minister in January fell seriously ill. A fortnight before the opening of the Session he paralysed his Party with amazement by deciding to dissolve Parliament. Seldom has so momentous a decision been arrived at in circumstances so strange and so peculiar. Writing to Lord Salisbury on the 26th of January, 1874, Mr. Hayward says: “Alderson (whom I saw yesterday) thought it unlikely that you would be brought back earlier than you intended by the Dissolution, which has come on every one by surprise. The thought first struck Gladstone as he lay rolled up in blankets to perspire away his cold, was mentioned as a thought to daughter and private secretary, then rapidly ripened into a resolution and submitted to the Cabinet. The secret was wonderfully well kept by everybody. The Liberals are delighted, and the Disraelites puzzled and amazed.”[63]
Parliament was dissolved on the 20th of January, and it was reckoned that the new House of Commons would be elected by St. Valentine’s Day. Mr. Gladstone’s Address to the electors of Greenwich set forth at great length the reasons for his sudden appeal to the country. But Mr. Forster gave the best and briefest explanation, when he told his constituents at Bradford that the Dissolution was due to the petty defeats and humiliations which the Government had suffered since Mr. Disraeli’s refusal to relieve them of the cares of office, and to a desire that the electors should decide whether Mr. Disraeli or Mr. Gladstone should have the spending of the enormous surplus of £6,000,000 at the disposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Gladstone in his declarations of policy referred to the Ashanti War as a warning against “equivocal and entangling engagements.” He complained that the House of Commons was overburdened with work, and, with an eye to the Irish vote, he approved of delegating some of its business to “local and subordinate authorities” under the “unquestioned control” of Parliament. He held out no hopes of effecting any great changes in the Education Act, but he promised a measure of University Reform, supported the extension of Household Franchise to the Counties, and pledged himself to abolish the Income Tax. His meagre references to Foreign Affairs seemed to show that Mr. Bright had forced the Cabinet to accept the unpopular policy of selfish and self-contained isolation, which virtually ignored the higher international duties of England as one of the brotherhood of European nations.
Mr. Disraeli’s manifesto was not at first sight captivating. Instead of attacking Mr. Gladstone’s proposal to abolish the Income Tax as an attempt to secure a Party majority by taking a plébiscite on a Budget which had not yet come before Parliament, Mr. Disraeli fell in gladly with the idea. The abolition of the Income Tax was apparently to him what emigration was to Mr. Micawber when he had it suggested to him for the first time—the dream of his youth, the ambition of his manhood, and the solace of his declining years. The Tory chief also over-elaborated his complaints that Mr. Gladstone had imperilled freedom of navigation in the Straits of Malacca by recognising the right of the Dutch to conquer the Acheenese if they could. Nor was he apparently successful in attacking the Government for entering on the Ashanti War without waiting to ask Parliament for leave to repel Ashanti assaults on our forts. But when he demanded “more energy” in Foreign Affairs than Mr. Gladstone had exhibited, and when he said that measures could be devised to improve the condition of the people without incessant “harassing legislation,” he cut the Government to the quick.
The elections ended in a signal disaster to the Liberal Party. Nobody was ready for the fray. Everybody was irritated at being taken unawares. The influences and the “interests” that had caused the decay of Mr. Gladstone’s Administration have been already described. It will be enough to say here that they smote it with defeat at the polls. The attempt to neutralise these influences by promising to spend the surplus in abolishing the Income Tax and readjusting local taxation completely failed. The working classes were not eager to take off a tax which they did not pay. The majority of the Income Tax payers argued that Mr. Disraeli’s manifesto showed that he was prepared to give them whatever relief was possible. Independent electors felt that it was desirable to censure a project which might establish a precedent for including the Budget in an electoral manifesto,[64] and throwing the financial system of the country into the crucible of a General Election.[65] The City of London decisively abandoned Liberalism. The counties were swept by Tory candidates. The working classes refused to support candidates of their own order, save in Stafford and Morpeth, where the miners returned Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Burt to Parliament. Men of high capacity, unless their names were known to newspaper readers, were ruthlessly rejected. The electors preferred either candidates of loudly-advertised eminence, rich local magnates, or young men of family—especially if they had titles. Only two tenant-farmers were chosen—Mr. Clare Read, a moderate Conservative, and Mr. McCombie, a moderate Liberal. The “professors” and academic politicians went down helplessly in the mêlée—even Mr. Fawcett failing to hold his seat at Brighton, though shortly after Parliament met he was returned by Hackney, where a vacancy accidentally occurred. The Home counties, where “villadom”—to use Lord Rosebery’s term—reigns supreme, went over to Conservatism, and the success of the Tories in the largest cities was amazing. The middling-sized towns, and, generally speaking, the electors north of the Humber, were pretty faithful to Liberalism. But in Ireland the Liberal Party almost ceased to exist—the Irish electors preferring to return either Home Rulers or Tories. Roughly speaking, Mr. Disraeli could count on a steady working majority of fifty, even reckoning the Irish Home Rulers as Liberals.
Mr. Gladstone tendered his resignation at once when the results of the Elections were known, and Mr. Disraeli on being sent for formed a Cabinet, in which the offices were distributed as follows:—First Lord of the Treasury, Mr. Disraeli; Lord Chancellor, Lord Cairns; Lord President of the Council, Duke of Richmond; Lord Privy Seal, Lord Malmesbury; Foreign Secretary, Lord Derby; Secretary for India, Lord Salisbury; Colonial Secretary, Lord Carnarvon; Home Secretary, Mr. R. A. Cross; War Secretary, Mr. Gathorne-Hardy; First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Ward Hunt; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Northcote; Postmaster-General, Lord John Manners. The minor offices were distributed either among administrators and men of business, or young men of high birth and promising abilities, who were thus put in training for the duties of leadership in the future.[66]
Ministers and ex-Ministers soon had their troubles thick upon them. The “interests” were impatient for satisfaction, and there was an ugly rush after the surplus. Deputations of Income Tax repealers, Local Taxation Leaguers, clergymen demanding subsidies to Consular chaplains, brewers demanding the repeal of their licence, Malt Tax repealers, Sugar Duty repealers, clerical supporters of voluntary schools, who, according to Lord Sandon, virtually asked for the suspension of payment by results, waited on Sir Stafford Northcote to claim their share of Mr. Gladstone’s surplus. Other Ministers, too, were pestered by the various “interests” who had worked for the Tory Party at the General Election on the understanding that Mr. Gladstone’s “harassing” legislation would be undone if Mr. Disraeli came back to power. The new Government were sufficiently courageous to resist this pressure. Indeed, they were generous enough to retract much of the hostile criticism which in the heat of electioneering contests had been hurled against Mr. Gladstone’s Administration. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, was not only shattered, but practically leaderless. Its chiefs, it was said, were fighting among themselves. Stories flew about to the effect that Mr. Lowe declared he would never again follow Mr. Gladstone, that Sir William Harcourt was convinced he must lead the Party himself if it was to be saved from extinction, and that Sir Henry James vowed that he would never permit Mr. Gladstone to sit as his colleague in any future Liberal Cabinet. Naturally Mr. Gladstone retired from the duties of leadership, but pressure was put upon him to resume them. He consented, but only on the understanding that his service was to be temporary, and that he should not be expected to be in regular attendance in the House of Commons. His advanced age, his broken health, and his need of rest, were the reasons which he gave publicly for his action. His real motive, however, he confided to Mr. Hayward, who, in a letter to Lady Emily Peel (27th of February, 1874), says, “I had a long talk with Gladstone yesterday. He thinks the Party in too heterogeneous a state for regular leadership, that it must be let alone to shake itself into consistency. He will attend till Easter, and then quit the field for a time. He does not talk of permanent abdication.”[67] Mr. Gladstone, it would seem, at this time considered his functions as a leader ended after he had shattered his Party. Not till it had been reorganised by somebody else, or had reorganised itself, did he apparently deem it worthy of his guidance.
On the 19th of March the Queen’s Speech was read to both Houses of Parliament. It referred joyfully to the termination of the war with the Ashantis, the marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh, but mournfully to the famine which was then devastating Bengal. It promised a Land Transfer Bill, the extension of the Judicature Act fusing law and equity to Ireland and Scotland, a Bill to remedy the grievances of the publicans, a Bill dealing with Friendly Societies, and a Royal Commission on the Labour Laws.[68] In the debate on the Address several Peers took occasion to make sport of the great Minister who had fallen from power. But the Commons were spared this exhibition of political vulgarity, mainly because Mr. Disraeli snubbed most mercilessly the first of his followers who attempted to indulge in it.
When Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, who moved the Address, taunted Mr. Gladstone with his defeat, Mr. Disraeli assured the House that Sir William had, contrary to custom, spoken without consulting him as to what he should say—in fact, without consulting anybody. As for the silence of the Liberal Members on the results of the Dissolution, “I admire,” said Mr. Disraeli, “their taste and feeling. If I had been a follower of a Parliamentary chief as eminent as the Right Honourable gentleman, even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed rather to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism; I should remember the great victories he had fought and won. I should remember his illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour; not its accidental or even disastrous mistakes.” Mr. Gladstone’s frank and candid statement was a model of dignified simplicity well worthy of Mr. Disraeli’s chivalrous admiration. The defeated Minister simply said that his policy of fiscal reorganisation in his judgment could not be carried save by a Government possessing the full confidence of the country. The bye-elections—notably the Liberal defeat at Stroud—during the recess rendered it doubtful if his Administration possessed this confidence. His appeal to the country confirmed that doubt. Nay, the verdict of the electors so emphatically declared their desire to entrust power to the Tory Party, that he felt it his duty to make way for Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues as soon as possible, and to afford them every reasonable facility for giving effect to the will of the people. [69]
These chivalrous courtesies foretold a dull Session. Nor did the statements of Ministers seem promising to the “young bloods” of the Tory Party, who held it as an axiom that they were badly led if their leaders did not show them plenty of “sport.” What did Lord Derby mean, for example, by telling the House of Lords that Lord Granville had left the Foreign Affairs of the country in the most satisfactory condition? Had they not all assured their constituents that he had brought England to such a depth of degradation that there were now none so poor as do her reverence? What did Mr. Disraeli mean in moving the Vote of Thanks to the Ashanti troops by praising Mr. Cardwell for the preparations he made for bringing the war to a speedy and victorious conclusion? Had they not all declared on the hustings that the conduct of the war was a model of mismanagement? Moreover, was it necessary for Lord Salisbury to exhaust the vocabulary of eulogy on Lord Northbrook for his energy in dealing with the Indian Famine? and was Mr. Hardy true to his followers and supporters when, on moving the Army Estimates (30th March), he contradicted every one of the charges that had been made against Mr. Cardwell, who had been accused of stopping Volunteering, exhausting stores, wrecking fortifications, and failing to arm the troops?[70] One passing gleam of hope shot across the horizon when Mr. Ward Hunt in his speech on the Naval Estimates stood by the wild and whirling rhetoric of Opposition criticism. He declared that the Fleet was inefficient, and warned the House he might need a Supplementary Estimate. Whilst he, at least, remained at the Admiralty he would not tolerate a “fleet on paper” or “dummy ships.” But alas! even Mr. Ward Hunt’s alarmist statement vanished in a peal of laughter when it was discovered that all he asked for to convert his “paper fleet” into a real one was £100,000! Cynical critics soon reassured a scared populace. The best proof that the Services had not been starved or rendered inefficient by Mr. Gladstone’s Administration was afforded by Sir Stafford Northcote, who made no secret of his intention to distribute the surplus of £6,000,000 which every one regarded with hungry eyes.
The eventful day for the division of the spoil came on the 16th of