SECOND PREMIERSHIP
1865-1866
The Polish Revolt--Bismarck's bid for power--The Schleswig-Holstein
difficulty--Death of Lord Palmerston--The Queen summons Lord
John--The second Russell Administration--Lord John's tribute to
Palmerston--Mr. Gladstone introduces Reform--The 'Cave of
Adullam'--Defeat of the Russell Government--The people accept
Lowe's challenge--The feeling in the country.
LORD JOHN, in his conduct of foreign affairs, acted with generosity
towards Italy and with mingled firmness and patience towards America. It
was a fortunate circumstance, for the great interests at stake on both
sides of the Atlantic, that a man of so much judgment and right feeling
was in power at a moment when prejudice was strong and passion ran high.
Grote, who was by no means consumed with enthusiasm for the Palmerston
Government, did not conceal his admiration of Lord John's sagacity at
this crisis. 'The perfect neutrality of England in the destructive civil
war now raging in America appears to me almost a phenomenon in political
history. No such forbearance has been shown during the political history
of the last two centuries. It is the single case in which the English
Government and public, generally so meddlesome, have displayed most
prudent and commendable forbearance in spite of great temptations to
the contrary.' Lord John had opinions, and the courage of them; but at
the same time he showed himself fully alive to the fact that no greater
calamity could possibly overtake the English-speaking race than a war
between England and the United States.
Europe was filled at the beginning of 1863 with tidings of a renewed
Polish revolt. Russia provoked the outbreak by the stern measures which
had been taken in the previous year to repress the growing discontent of
the people. The conspiracy was too widespread and too deep-rooted for
Alexander II. to deal with, except by concessions to national sentiment,
which he was not prepared to make, and, therefore, he fell back on
despotic use of power. All able-bodied men suspected of revolutionary
tendencies were marked out for service in the Russian army, and in this
way, in Lord John's words, the 'so-called conscription was turned into a
proscription.' The lot was made to fall on all political suspects, who
were to be condemned for life to follow the hated Russian flag. The
result was not merely armed resistance, but civil war. Poland, in her
struggle for liberty, was joined by Lithuania; but Prussia came to the
help of the Czar, and the protests of England, France, and Austria were
of no avail. Before the year ended the dreams of self-government in
Poland, after months of bloodshed and cruelty, were again ruthlessly
dispelled.
[Sidenote: BISMARCK SHOWS HIS HAND]
One diplomatic difficulty followed another in quick succession. Bismarck
was beginning to move the pawns on the chess-board of Europe. He had
conciliated Russia by taking sides with her against the Poles in spite
of the attitude of London, Paris, and Vienna. He feared the spirit of
insurrection would spread to the Poles in Prussia, and had no sympathy
with the aspirations of oppressed nationalities. His policy was to make
Prussia strong--if need be by 'blood and iron'--so that she might become
mistress of Germany. The death of Frederick VII. of Denmark provoked a
fresh crisis and revived in an acute form the question of succession to
the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. The Treaty of London in 1852 was
supposed to have settled the question, and its terms had been accepted
by Austria and Prussia. The integrity of Denmark was recognised, and
Prince Christian of Glucksburg was accepted as heir-presumptive of the
reigning king. The German Diet did not regard this arrangement as
binding, and the feeling in the duchies themselves, especially in
Holstein, was against the claims of Denmark. But the Hereditary Prince
Frederick of Augustenburg disputed the right of Christian IX. to the
Duchies, and Bismarck induced Austria to join Prussia in the occupation
of the disputed territory.
It is impossible to enter here into the merits of the quarrel, much less
to describe the course of the struggle or the complicated diplomatic
negotiations which grew out of it. Denmark undoubtedly imagined that the
energetic protest of the English Government against her dismemberment
would not end in mere words. The language used by both Lord Palmerston
and Lord John Russell was of a kind to encourage the idea of the
adoption, in the last extremity, of another policy than that of
non-intervention. Bismarck, on the other hand, it has been said with
truth, had taken up the cause of Schleswig-Holstein, not in the interest
of its inhabitants, but in the interests of Germany, and by Germany he
meant the Government of Berlin and the House of Hohenzollern. He
represented not merely other ideas, but other methods than those which
prevailed with statesmen who were old enough to recall the wars of
Napoleon and the partition of Europe to which they gave rise. It
must be admitted that England did not show to advantage in the
Schleswig-Holstein difficulty, in spite of the soundness of her
counsels; and Bismarck's triumph in the affair was as complete as the
policy on which it was based was bold and adroit. Lord Palmerston and
Lord John were embarrassed on the one hand by the apathy of Russia and
France and on the other by the cautious, not to say timid, attitude of
their own colleagues. 'As to Cabinets,' wrote Lord Palmerston, with dry
humour, in reply to a note in which Lord John hinted that if the Prime
Minister and himself had been given a free hand they could have kept
Austria from war with Denmark, 'if we had had colleagues like those who
sat in Pitt's Cabinet, such as Westmoreland and others, or such men as
those who were with Peel, like Goulburn and Hardinge, you and I might
have had our own way in most things. But when, as is now the case, able
men fill every department, such men will have opinions and hold to them.
Unfortunately, they are often too busy with their own department to
follow up foreign questions so as to be fully masters of them, and their
conclusions are generally on the timid side of what might be the
best.'[41]
[Sidenote: AS SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD]
Lord John wrote to Foreign Courts--was Mr. Bagehot's shrewd
criticism--much in the same manner as he was accustomed to speak in the
House of Commons. In other words, he used great plainness of speech,
and, because of the very desire to make his meaning clear, he, was
occasionally indiscreetly explicit and even brusque. Sometimes it
happened that the intelligent foreigner grew critical at Lord John's
expense. Count Vitzthum, for example, laid stress on the fact that Lord
John 'looked on the British Constitution as an inimitable masterpiece,'
which less-favoured nations ought not only to admire but adopt, if they
wished to advance and go forward in the direction of liberty,
prosperity, and peace. There was just enough truth in such assertions to
render them amusing, though not enough to give them a sting. There were
times when Lord John was the 'stormy petrel' of foreign politics, but
there never was a time when he ceased to labour in season and out for
what he believed to be the honour of England. 'I do not believe that any
English foreign statesman, who does his duty faithfully by his own
countrymen in difficult circumstances, can escape the blame of foreign
statesmen,' were his own words, and he assuredly came in for his full
share of abuse in Europe. One of Lord John Russell's subordinates at the
Foreign Office, well known and distinguished in the political life of
to-day, declares that Lord John, like Lord Clarendon, was accustomed to
write many drafts of despatches with his own hand, but as a rule did not
go with equal minuteness into the detail of the work. It sometimes
happened that he would take sudden resolutions without adequate
consideration of the points involved; but he would always listen
patiently to objections, and when convinced that he was wrong was
perfectly willing to modify his opinion. In most cases, however, Lord
John did not make up his mind without due reflection, and under such
circumstances he showed no vacillation. No tidings from abroad, however
startling or unpleasant, seemed able to disturb his equanimity. He was
an extremely considerate chief, but, though always willing to listen to
his subordinates, kept his own counsel and seldom took them much into
his confidence.
[Sidenote: COBDEN AND PALMERSTON]
The year 1865 was rendered memorable both in England and America by the
death of statesmen of the first rank. In the spring, that great master
of reason and economic reform, Richard Cobden, died in London, after a
few days' illness, in the prime of life; and almost before the nation
realised the greatness of such a loss, tidings came across the Atlantic
that President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated at Washington, in
the hour of triumph, by a cowardly fanatic. The summer in England was
made restless by a General Election. Though Bright denounced Lord
Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone lost his seat at Oxford, to stand
'unmuzzled' a few days later before the electors of South-West
Lancashire, the predicted Conservative reaction was not an accomplished
fact. Lord Palmerston's ascendency in the country, though diminished,
was still great, and the magic of his name carried the election. 'It is
clear,' wrote Lord John to the plucky octogenarian Premier, when the
latter, some time before the contest, made a fighting speech in the
country, 'that your popularity is a plant of hardy growth and deep
roots.' Quite suddenly, in the spring of 1865, Lord Palmerston began to
look as old as his years, and as the summer slipped past, it became
apparent that the buoyant elasticity of temperament had vanished. On
October 18 the great Minister died in harness, and Lord John Russell,
who was only eight years younger, was called to the helm.
The two men, more than once in mid-career, had serious
misunderstandings, and envious lips had done their best to widen their
differences. It is pleasant to think now that Palmerston and Russell
were on cordial and intimate terms during the critical six years, when
the former held for the last time the post of First Minister of the
Crown, and the latter was responsible for Foreign Affairs. It is true
that they were not of one mind on the question of Parliamentary Reform;
but Lord John, after 1860 at least, was content to waive that question,
for he saw that the nation, as well as the Prime Minister, was opposed
to a forward movement in that direction, and the strain of war abroad
and famine at home hindered the calm discussion of constitutional
problems. Lord Lyttelton used to say that Palmerston was regarded as a
Whig because he belonged to Lord Grey's Government, and had always
thrown in his lot with that statesman's political posterity. At the same
time, Lord Lyttelton held--even as late as 1865--that a 'more genuine
Conservative, especially in home affairs, it would not be easy to find.'
Palmerston gave Lord John Russell his active support in the attitude
which the latter took up at the Foreign Office on all the great
questions which arose, sometimes in a sudden and dramatic form, at a
period when the power of Napoleon III., in spite of theatrical display,
was declining, and Bismarck was shaping with consummate skill the
fortunes of Germany.
[Sidenote: PRIME MINISTER]
The day after Palmerston's death her Majesty wrote in the following
terms to Lord John: 'The melancholy news of Lord Palmerston's death
reached the Queen last night. This is another link with the past that is
broken, and the Queen feels deeply in her desolate and isolated
condition how, one by one, tried servants and advisers are taken from
her.... The Queen can turn to no other than Lord Russell, an old and
tried friend of hers, to undertake the arduous duties of Prime
Minister, and to carry on the Government.' Such a command was met by
Lord John with the response that he was willing to act if his colleagues
were prepared to serve under him. Mr. Gladstone's position in the
country and in the councils of the Liberal Party had been greatly
strengthened by his rejection at Oxford, and by the subsequent boldness
and fervour of his speeches in Lancashire. He forestalled Lord John's
letter by offering, in a frank and generous spirit, to serve under the
old Liberal leader. Mr. Gladstone declared that he was quite willing to
take his chance under Lord John's 'banner,' and to continue his services
as Chancellor of the Exchequer. This offer was of course accepted, and
Mr. Gladstone also took Lord Palmerston's place as Leader of the House
of Commons. Lord Cranworth became Lord Chancellor, Lord Clarendon took
Lord John's place at the Foreign Office, the Duke of Argyll and Sir
George Grey resumed their old positions as Lord Privy Seal and Home
Secretary. After a short interval, Mr. Goschen and Lord Hartington were
raised to Cabinet rank; while Mr. Forster, Lord Dufferin, and Mr.
Stansfeld became respectively Under-Secretaries for the Colonies, War,
and India; but Lord John, in spite of strong pressure, refused to admit
Mr. Lowe to his Cabinet.
At the Lord Mayor's banquet in November, Lord John took occasion to pay
a warm tribute to Palmerston: 'It is a great loss indeed, because he was
a man qualified to conduct the country successfully through all the
vicissitudes of war and peace.' He declared that Lord Palmerston
displayed resolution, resource, promptitude, and vigour in the conduct
of foreign affairs, showed himself also able to maintain internal
tranquillity, and, by extending commercial relationships, to give to
the country the 'whole fruits of the blessings of peace.' He added that
Lord Palmerston's heart never ceased to beat for the honour of England,
and that his mind comprehended and his experience embraced the whole
field which is covered by the interests of the nation.
The new Premier made no secret of his conviction that, if the Ministry
was to last, it must be either frankly Liberal or frankly Conservative.
As he had the chief voice in the matter, and was bent on a new Reform
Bill, it became, after certain changes had been effected, much more
progressive than was possible under Palmerston. Parliament was opened on
February 1, 1866, by the Queen in person, for the first time since the
death of the Prince Consort, and the chief point of interest in the
Speech from the Throne was the guarded promise of a Reform Bill. The
attention of Parliament was to be called to information concerning the
right of voting with a view to such improvements as might tend to
strengthen our free institutions and conduce to the public welfare. Lord
John determined to make haste slowly, for some of his colleagues were
hardly inclined to make haste at all, since they shared Lord
Palmerston's views on the subject and distrusted the Radical cry which
had arisen since the industrial revolution. The Premier and Mr.
Gladstone--for they were a kind of Committee of Two--were content for
the moment to propose a revision of the franchise, and to leave in
ambush for another session the vexed question involved in a
redistribution of seats. 'It was decided,' states Lord John, 'that it
would be best to separate the question of the franchise from that of the
disfranchisement of boroughs. After much inquiry, we agreed to fix the
suffrages of boroughs at an occupation of 7_l._ value.'
[Sidenote: THE CAVE OF ADULLAM]
The House of Commons was densely packed when Mr. Gladstone introduced
the measure on March 12, but, in spite of his powers of exposition and
infectious enthusiasm, the Government proposals fell undeniably flat.
Broadly stated, they were as follows. The county franchise was to be
dropped to 14_l._, and that of the borough, as already stated, to half
that amount, whilst compound householders and lodgers paying 10_l._ a
year were to possess votes. It was computed at the time that the measure
would add four hundred thousand new voters to the existing lists, and
that two hundred thousand of these would belong to what Lord John termed
the 'best of the working classes.' Mr. Bright, and those whom he
represented, not only in Birmingham, but also in every great city and
town in the land, gave their support to the Government, on the principle
that this was at least an 'honest' measure, and that half a loaf,
moreover, was better than no bread. At the same time the country was not
greatly stirred one way or another by the scheme, though it stirred to
panic-stricken indignation men of the stamp of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Horsman,
Lord Elcho, Earl Grosvenor, Lord Dunkellin, and other so-called, but
very indifferent, Liberals, who had attached themselves to the party
under Lord Palmerston's happy-go-lucky and easy auspices. These were the
men who presently distinguished themselves, and extinguished the Russell
Administration by their ridiculous fear of the democracy. They retired
into what Mr. Bright termed the 'political cave of Adullam,' and, as
Lord John said, the 'timid, the selfish, and those who were both selfish
and timid' joined the sorry company.
The Conservatives saw their opportunity, and, being human, took it. Lord
Grosvenor brought forward an amendment calling attention to the omission
of a redistribution scheme. A debate, which occupied eight nights,
followed, and when it was in progress, Mr. Gladstone, in defending his
own conduct as Leader of the House, incidentally paid an impressive
tribute to the memorable and protracted services in the Commons of Lord
John:--
'If, sir, I had been the man who, at the very outset of his career,
wellnigh half a century ago, had with an almost prophetic foresight
fastened upon two great groups of questions, those great historic
questions relating to the removal of civil disabilities for religious
opinions and to Parliamentary Reform; if I had been the man who, having
thus in his early youth, in the very first stage of his political
career, fixed upon those questions and made them his own, then went on
to prosecute them with sure and unflagging instinct until the triumph in
each case had been achieved; if I had been the man whose name had been
associated for forty years, and often in the very first place of
eminence, with every element of beneficent legislation--in other words,
had I been Earl Russell, then there might have been some temptation to
pass into excess on the exercise of authority, and some excuse for the
endeavour to apply to this House a pressure in itself unjustifiable.
But, sir, I am not Earl Russell.'
In the end, Lord Grosvenor's amendment was lost by a majority equal only
to the fingers of one hand. Such an unmistakeable expression of opinion
could not be disregarded, and the Government brought in a Redistribution
of Seats Bill at the beginning of May. They proposed that thirty
boroughs having a population of less than eight thousand should be
deprived of one member, whilst nineteen other seats were obtained by
joint representation in smaller boroughs. After running the gauntlet of
much hostile criticism, the bill was read a second time, but the
Government were forced to refer it and the franchise scheme to a
committee, which was empowered to deal with both schemes. Lord Stanley,
Mr. Ward Hunt, and Mr. Walpole assailed with successive motions, which
were more or less narrowly rejected, various points in the Government
proposals, and the opposition grew more and more stubborn. At length
Lord Dunkellin (son of the Earl of Clanricarde) moved to substitute
rating for rental in the boroughs; and the Government, in a House of six
hundred and nineteen members, were defeated on June 18 by a majority of
eleven. The excitement which met this announcement was extraordinary,
and when it was followed next day by tidings that the Russell
Administration was at an end, those who thought that the country cared
little about the question found themselves suddenly disillusioned.
[Sidenote: FALL OF THE RUSSELL GOVERNMENT]
Burke declared that there were moments when it became necessary for the
people themselves to interpose on behalf of their rights. The overthrow
of the Russell Administration took the nation by surprise. Three days
after Lord John's resignation there was a historic gathering in
Trafalgar Square. In his speech announcing the resignation of his
Ministry, Lord John warned Parliament about the danger of alienating the
sympathy of the people from the Crown and the aristocracy. He reminded
the Peers that universal suffrage prevailed not only in the United
States but in our own Colonies; and he took his stand in the light of
the larger needs of the new era, on the assertion of Lord Grey at the
time of the Reform Bill that only a large measure was a safe measure.
'We have made the attempt,' added Lord John, 'sincerely and anxiously to
perform the duties of reconciling that which is due to the Constitution
of the country with that which is due to the growing intelligence, the
increasing wealth, and the manifest forbearance, virtue, and order of
the people.' He protested against a niggardly and ungenerous treatment
of so momentous a question.
Lord Russell's words were not lost on Mr. Bradlaugh. He made them the
text of his speech to the twenty thousand people who assembled in
Trafalgar Square, and afterwards walked in procession to give Mr.
Gladstone an ovation in Carlton House Terrace. About three weeks later
another great demonstration was announced to take place in Hyde Park,
under the auspices of the Reform League. The authorities refused to
allow the gathering, and, after a formal protest, the meeting was held
at the former rendezvous. The mixed multitude who had followed the
procession to the Park gates took the repulse less calmly, with the
result that, as much by accident as by design, the Park railings for the
space of half a mile were thrown down. Force is no remedy, but a little
of it is sometimes a good object-lesson, and the panic which this
unpremeditated display occasioned amongst the valiant defenders of law
and order was unmistakeable.
[Sidenote: 'DISHING THE WHIGS']
Mr. Lowe had flouted the people, and had publicly asserted that those
who were without the franchise did not really care to possess it.
Forty-three other so-called Liberals in the House of Commons were
apparently of the same way of thinking, for the Russell Administration
was defeated by forty-four 'Liberal' votes. This in itself shows that
Lord John, up to the hour in which he was driven from power, was far in
advance of one section of his followers. The great towns, and more
particularly Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds, promptly took up the
challenge; and in those three centres alone half a million of people
assembled to make energetic protest against the contemptuous dismissal
of their claims. The fall of the Park railings appealed to the fear of
the classes, and aroused the enthusiasm of the masses. It is scarcely
too much to say that if they had been demolished a month earlier the
Russell Government would have carried its Reform proposals, and Disraeli
would have lost his chance of 'dishing the Whigs.' The defeat of Lord
John Russell was a virtual triumph. He was driven from power by a rally
of reactionary forces at the very moment when he was fighting the battle
of the people.[42] The Tories were only able to hold their own by
borrowing a leaf from his book, and bringing in a more drastic measure
of reform.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] _Life and Correspondence of Viscount Palmerston_, by the Hon.
Evelyn Ashley, vol. ii. p. 438.
[42] In a letter written in the spring of 1867, Lord Houghton refers to
Mr. Gladstone as being 'quite awed' for the moment by the 'diabolical
cleverness of Dizzy.' He adds: 'Delane says the extreme party for Reform
are now the grandees, and that the Dukes are quite ready to follow Beale
into Hyde Park.'--_The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Lord Houghton_,
by Sir Wemyss Reid, vol. ii. pp. 174-5.