PROGRESS OF THE EMPIRE FROM 1887 TO 1897.
[Illustration: Duke of Connaught.]
Resuming our pen after an interval of ten years, we have thought it
well, not only to carry on our story of the Sovereign and her realm
to the latest attainable point, but also to give some account of the
advance made and the work accomplished by the Methodist Church,
which, youngest of the greater Nonconformist denominations, has acted
more powerfully than any other among them on the religious and social
life, not only of the United Kingdom and the Empire, but of the
world. This account, very brief, but giving details little known to
outsiders, will form a valuable pendant to the sketch of the general
history of Victoria's England that we are now about to continue.
[Illustration: The Imperial Institute.]
Many thousands who rejoiced in the Queen's Jubilee of 1887 are glad
to-day that the close of the decade should find the beloved Lady of
these isles, true woman and true Queen, still living and reigning.
On September 23, 1896, Queen Victoria had reigned longer than any
other English monarch, and the desire was general for some immediate
celebration of the event; but, by the Queen's express wish, all
recognition of the fact was deferred until the sixtieth year should
be fully completed, and the nation prepared to celebrate the "Diamond
Jubilee" on June 22, 1897, with a fervour of loyalty that should far
outshine that of the Jubilee year of 1887.
In the personal history of our Queen during those ten years we may
note with reverent sympathy some events that must shadow the festival
for her. The calm and kindly course of her home-life has again been
broken in upon by bereavement. All seemed fair in the Jubilee year
itself, and the Queen was appearing more in public than had been her
wont--laying the foundations of the Imperial Institute; unveiling in
Windsor Park a statue of the Prince Consort, Jubilee gift of the
women of England; taking part in a magnificent naval review at
Spithead. But a shadow was already visible to some; and early in 1888
sinister rumours were afloat as to the health of the Crown Prince of
Germany, consort of the Queen's eldest daughter. Too soon those
rumours proved true. Even when the prince rode in the splendid
Jubilee procession, a commanding figure in his dazzling white
uniform, the cruel malady had fastened on him that was to slay him in
less than a year, proving fatal three months after the death of his
aged father had called him to fill the imperial throne. The nation
followed the course of this tragedy with a feverish interest never
before excited by the lot of any foreign potentate, and deeply
sympathised with, the distress of the Queen and of the bereaved
empress.
[Illustration: Duke of Clarence. _From a Photograph by Lafayette,
Dublin_.]
But the year 1892 held in store a blow yet more cruelly felt. The
English people were still rejoicing with the Queen over the betrothal
of the Duke of Clarence, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, to his
kinswoman Princess May of Teck, when the death of the bridegroom
elect in January plunged court and people into mourning. That the
Queen was greatly touched by the universal sympathy with her and hers
was proved by the pathetic letter she wrote to the nation, and by the
frank reliance on their affection which marked the second letter in
which, eighteen months later, she asked them to share her joy in the
wedding of the Duke of York, now heir-presumptive, to the bride-elect
of his late brother. This union has been highly popular, and the
Queen's evident delight in the birth of the little Prince Edward of
York in June, 1894, touched the hearts of her subjects, who
remembered the deep sorrow of 1892.
[Illustration: Duke of York. _From a Photograph by Russell & Sons,
Baker Street, W_.]
[Illustration: Duchess of York. _From a Photograph by Russell & Sons,
Baker Street, W_.]
Once more they were called to grieve with her, when the husband of
her youngest daughter Beatrice, Prince Henry of Battenberg, who for
years had formed part of her immediate circle, died far from home and
England, having fallen a victim to fever ere he could distinguish
himself, as he had hoped, in our last expedition to Ashanti. The
pathos of such a death was deeply felt when the prince's remains were
brought home and laid to rest, in the presence of his widow and her
royal mother, in the very church at Whippingham that he had entered
an ardent bridegroom. Not all gloom, however, has been Her Majesty's
domestic life in these recent years; she has taken joy in the
marriages of many of her descendants; and the visits of her
grandchildren--of whom one, Princess Alice of Hesse, daughter of the
well-beloved Alice of England, became Czarina of Russia only the
other day--are a source of keen interest to her.
[Illustration: Princess Henry of Battenberg. _From a Photograph by
Hughes & Mullins, Ryde, Isle of Wight_.]
[Illustration: Prince Henry of Battenberg. _From a Photograph by
Hughes & Mullins, Ryde, Isle of Wight_.]
[Illustration: The Czarina of Russia.]
But there is no selfish absorption in her own family affairs, no
neglect of essential duty. The Prince of Wales and "the Princess"
relieve the Queen of many irksome social functions; but she does not
shun these when it is clear to her that her people wish her to
undertake them. Witness her willingness to take part in the Jubilee
Thanksgiving services and pageant, despite the feebleness of her
advanced age.
We need not dwell long on the rather stormy Parliamentary history of
the last decade, on the divisions and disappointments of the Irish
Home Rule party, once so powerful, or on the various attacks aimed at
the Welsh and Scottish Church establishments and at the principle of
"hereditary legislation" as embodied in the House of Lords. Some
useful legislation has been accomplished amid all the strife. We may
instance the Act in 1888 creating the new system of County Councils,
the Parish Councils Act, the Factory and Workshops Amendment Act, and
the Education Act of 1891--measures designed to protect the toiling
millions from the evils of "sweating," and to assure their children
of practically free education.
Substantial good has been done, whether the reins of power have been
held by Mr. Gladstone or by Lord Salisbury--whose long tenure of
office expiring in 1892, the veteran statesman whom he had displaced
again took the helm--or by Lord Rosebery, in whose favour the great
leader finally withdrew in 1894 into private life, weary of the
burden of State. In 1897 we again see Lord Salisbury directing the
destinies of the mighty empire--a task of exceptional difficulty, now
that the gravest complications exist in Europe itself and in Africa.
The horrors suffered by the Armenian subjects of the Turk have called
for intervention by the great powers; but no sooner had Turkish
reforms been promised in response to the joint note of Great Britain,
France, and Russia, than new troubles began in Crete, its people
rising in arms to shake off the Turkish yoke.
Meanwhile our occupation of Egypt is compelling us to use armed force
against the wild, threatening dervishes in the Soudan, and
well-grounded uneasiness is felt as to the position and action of our
countrymen in Southeastern Africa in connexion with the Boer republic
of the Transvaal. The British South Africa Chartered Company, formed
in 1889, adventurous and ambitious, loomed large in men's eyes during
1896, when the historic and disastrous raid of Dr. Jameson and his
followers startled the civilised world. The whole story of that
enterprise is yet to unfold; but it has added considerably to the
embarrassments of the British government. Hopes were entertained in
1890 that the British East Africa Company, by the pressure it could
put on the Sultan of Zanzibar, had secured the cessation of the slave
trade on the East African shore; these hopes are not yet fulfilled,
but it may be trusted that a step has been taken towards the
mitigation of the evil--the "open sore of the world."
If we turn to India, we see it in 1896-7 still in the grip of a cruel
famine, aggravated by an outbreak of the bubonic plague too well
known to our fathers, which, appearing three years ago at Hong-Kong,
has committed new ravages at Bombay. Government is making giant
efforts to meet both evils, and is aided by large free-will offerings
of money, sent not only from this country, but also from Canada. "Ten
years ago such a manifestation would have been unlikely. The sense of
kinship is stronger, the imperial sentiment has grown deeper, the
feeling of responsibility has broadened." Kinship with a starving
race is felt and shown by the Empress on her throne, and her subjects
learn to follow her example.
But the sense of brotherhood seems somewhat deficient when we look at
the continual labour wars that mark the period in our own land. From
the Hyde Park riots of socialists and unemployed, in the end of 1887,
to the railway strikes of 1897, the story is one of strikes among all
sorts and conditions of workers, paralysing trade, and witnessing to
strained relations between labour and capital; the great London
strike of dock labourers, lasting five weeks, and keeping 2,500 men
out of work, may yet be keenly remembered. There seems an imperative
need for the wide diffusion of a true, practical Christianity among
employers and employed; some signs point to the growth of that
healing spirit: and we may note with delight that while never was
there so much wealth and never such deep poverty as during this
period, never also were there so many religious and charitable
organisations at work for the relief of poverty and the uplifting of
the fallen; while not a few of the wealthy, and even one or two
millionaires, have shown by generous giving their painful sense of
the contrast between their own wealth and the destitution of others.
It has been a period of sharp religious disputes, and every religious
and benevolent institution is keenly criticised; but great good is
being done notwithstanding by devoted men and women. The centenary of
the Baptist Missionary Society, observed in 1892, recalled to mind
the vast work accomplished by missions since that pioneer society
sent out the apostolic "shoemaker" Carey, to labour in India, and
reminds us of the great change wrought in public opinion since he and
his enterprise were so bitterly attacked. The heroic missionary
spirit is still alive, as is proved by the readiness of new
evangelists to step into the place of the missionaries to China,
cruelly murdered at Ku-Cheng in 1895 by heathen fanatics.
The immense development of our colonies during the reign has already
been noticed; some of them have made surprising advances during the
last ten years. In southern and eastern Africa British enterprise has
done much to develop the great natural wealth of the land; but the
frequent troubles in Matabeleland and the complications with the
Transvaal since the discovery of gold there may be regarded as
counterbalancing the material advantages secured. Ceylon has a
happier record, having more than regained her imperilled prosperity
through the successful enterprise of her settlers in cultivating the
fine tea which has almost displaced China tea in the British market,
Ceylon exporting 100,000,000 lbs. in 1895 as against 2,000,000 lbs.
ten years previously. Canada also now takes rank as a great maritime
state, and the fortunes of Australia, though much shaken a few years
ago by a great financial crisis, are again brilliant; in the world of
social progress and democracy it is still the colonial marvel of our
times.
[Illustration: H. M. Stanley.]
The last census, taken in 1891, in Great Britain and Ireland showed a
vast increase of population, sixty-two towns in England and Wales
returning more than 50,000 inhabitants, and the total population of
the United Kingdom being 38,104,975. Alarmists warned us that, with
the ratio of increase shown, neither food nor place would soon be
found for our people; and a great impetus being given to emigration,
our colonies benefited. But despite such alarms, articles of luxury
were in greater demand than ever, the tobacco duty reaching in 1892
the sum of £10,135,666, half a million, more than in the previous
year; and the consumption of tea and spirits increased in due
proportion. The same year saw great improvements in sanitation put
into practice as the result of an alarm of cholera, that plague
ravaging Hamburg.
[Illustration: Dr. Fridtjof Nansen.]
[Illustration: Miss Kingsley.]
Vast engineering works, of which the Manchester Ship Canal is the
most familiar instance, have been carried on. This great waterway,
thirty-five miles long, and placing an inland town in touch with the
sea, was begun in 1887 and finished in 1894. Numerous exhibitions, at
home and abroad, have stimulated industrial and æsthetic progress;
and science has continued to advance with bewildering rapidity,
developing chiefly in practical directions. The bacteriologist has
unveiled much of the mystery of disease, showing that seed-germs
produce it; the photographer comes in aid of surgery, for the
discovery of the X or Röntgen rays, by the German professor whose
name is associated with them, now enables the surgeon to discover
foreign bodies lodged within the human frame, and to decide with
authority their position and the means of removing them. Burial
reforms, in the interests of health and economy, have been
introduced, and nursing, elevated into a science, has become an
honourable profession for cultured women. In 1894 that eminent
_savant_ Lord Rayleigh brought before the British Association his
discovery of a hitherto unknown constituent in the atmosphere. The
use of steam as a motive power, almost contemporaneous with the
Queen's reign, has bound our land in a network of railways: now it is
electricity which is being utilised in the same sense, and to the
telephone and the telegraph as means of verbal communication is added
the motorcar as a means of rapid progression, 1896 seeing its use in
streets sanctioned by Parliament. It may not yet supersede the
bicycle, which in ten years has greatly increased in favour. Electric
lighting, in the same period, has become very general; and further
adaptations of this mysterious force to man's service are in the air.
[Illustration: J. M. Barrie.]
[Illustration: Richard Jefferies.]
This is an age of great explorers. Stanley has succeeded to
Livingstone, Nansen to Franklin; but it has been only within
comparatively recent years that women have emulated men in
penetrating to remote regions. Within the decade we have seen Mrs.
Bishop a veteran traveller, visiting south-west Persia; Mrs. French
Sheldon has shown how far beyond the beaten track a woman's
adventurous spirit may lead her; and Miss Mary Kingsley, a niece of
the late Charles Kingsley, has intrepidly explored the interior of
Africa, her scientific observations being welcomed by British
_savants_. In 1896 women, who had long sought the privilege, were
permitted to compete for the diploma of the Royal College of
Surgeons, and in many other walks of usefulness the barriers
excluding women have been removed, with benefit to all concerned. It
is not other than natural that under the reign of a noble woman there
should arise women noble-minded as herself, cherishing ideas of life
and duty lofty as her own, and that their greatest elevation of
purpose should tent to raise the moral standard among the men who
work with them for the uplifting of their fellow subjects. Such signs
of the times may be noticed now, more evident than even ten years
ago.
[Illustration: Professor Huxley. _From a Photograph by the London
Stereoscopic Co_.]
[Illustration: Professor Tyndall. _From a Photograph by Alexander
Bassano, Ltd_.]
The educational progress of the last decade has been very great,
especially as regards the instruction of women; yet the period has
not been noticeably fruitful of literature in the highest sense. In
the world of fiction there is much that looks like degeneration; the
lighter magazines and serials have multiplied past computation, and
form all the reading of not a few persons. To counteract the
unhealthy "modern novel" has arisen the Scottish school, the
"literature of the kailyard," as it has been termed in scorn; yet a
purer air breathes in the pages of J. M. Barrie, "Ian Maclaren," and
Crockett. Their many imitators are in some danger of impairing the
vogue of these masters, but still the tendency of the school is
wholesome. Other artists in fiction assume the part of censors of
society, and write of its doings with a bitterness that may or may
not profit; the unveiling of cancerous sores is of doubtful advantage
to health.
[Illustration: C. H. Spurgeon.]
[Illustration: Dr. Horatius Bonar.]
The death-roll from 1887 to 1897 is exceptionally heavy; in every
department of science, art, literary and religious life, the loss has
been great. Many musicians have been taken from us since the
well-beloved Jenny Lind Goldschmidt; Canon Sir E. A. Gore Ouseley,
Sir G. Macfarren, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music,
Rubinstein, Carrodus, and others.
[Illustration: Rev. J. G. Wood.]
[Illustration: Dean Church.]
English letters have suffered by the removal of many whose services
in one way or another have been great: the prose-painter Richard
Jefferies; the pure and beneficent Mrs. Craik, better known as Miss
Muloch; Matthew Arnold, poet, educationalist, critic, whose verse
should outlive his criticisms; the noble astronomer Richard Proctor;
Gustave Masson, the careful biographer of Milton; Laurence Oliphant,
gifted and eccentric visionary; the naturalist J. G. Wood; the
explorer and orientalist Burton; the historians Kinglake, Froude, and
Freeman; the great ecclesiastics Bishop Lightfoot, Canon Liddon,
Archbishop Magee of York, Dean Church, Dean Plumptre, and the
Cardinals Newman and Manning; Tennyson and Browning, poets whose
mantle has yet fallen on none; Huxley and Tyndall, eminent in
science; the justly popular preacher and writer Charles H. Spurgeon;
the orator and philanthropist John Bright, whose speeches delight
many in book-form; and Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist,
poet. To these we may add Eliza Cook and Martin Tapper, widely
popular a generation ago, and surviving into our own day; Lord
Lytton, known as "Owen Meredith," a literary artist, before he became
viceroy of India and British ambassador at Paris; and Professor Henry
Drummond, dead since 1897 began, and widely known by his "Natural Law
in the Spiritual World." Even so our list is far from complete.
[Illustration: J. E. Millais, P.R.A. _From a Photograph by Elliott &
Fry_.]
Of painters and sculptors we have lost since 1887 Frank Holl; Sir
Edgar Boehm, buried in St. Paul's by express wish of the Queen; Edwin
Long; John Pettie; Sir Noel Paton; Sir Frederick Leighton; and Sir
J. E. Millais. The last two illustrious painters were successively
Presidents of the Royal Academy, Millais, who followed Leighton in
that office, surviving him but a short time. Sir Frederick had been
raised to the peerage as Lord Leighton only a few days before he
died, the patent arriving too late for him to receive it.
[Illustration: Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A. _From a Photograph by
J. R. Mayall, Piccadilly, W_.]
The English world is the poorer for these many losses, some of which
took place under tragic circumstances; yet hope may well be cherished
that amongst us are those, not yet fully recognised, who will nobly
fill the places of the dead. Some hymn-writer may arise whose note
will be as sweet as that of the much loved singer, Dr. Horatius
Bonar, some painter as spiritual and powerful as Paton, some poet as
grandly gifted as the late laureate and his compeer Browning. We do
not at once recognise our greatest while they are with us; therefore
we need not think despairingly of our age because the good and the
great pass away, and we see not their place immediately filled. Nor,
though there be great and crying evils in our midst, need we tremble
lest these should prevail, while there is so much earnest and
energetic endeavour to cope with and overcome them.