FALL OF LORD BEACONSFIELD.
General Gloom--Fall of the Tay Bridge--Liberal Onslaught on
the Government--The Mussulman Schoolmaster and the Anglican
Missionary--The Queen’s Speech--The Irish Relief Bill--A Dying
Parliament--Mr. Cross’s Water Bill--“Coming in on Beer and Going
out on Water”--Sir Stafford Northcote’s Budget--Lord Beaconsfield’s
Manifesto--The General Election--Defeat of the Tories--Incidents
of the Struggle--Mr. Gladstone Prime Minister--The Fourth
Party--Mr. Bradlaugh and the Oath--Mr. Gladstone and the Emperor
of Austria--The Naval Demonstration--Grave Error in the Indian
Budget--Affairs in Afghanistan--Disaster at Maiwand--Roberts’s
March--The New Ameer--Revolt of the Boers--The Ministerial
Programme--The Burials Bill--The Hares and Rabbits Bill--The
Employers’ Liability Bill--Supplementary Budget--The Compensation
for Disturbance Bill--Boycotting--Trial of Mr. Parnell and Mr.
Dillon--The Queen’s Visit to Germany--The Queen Presents the Albert
Medal to George Oatley of the Coastguard--Reviews at Windsor--The
Queen’s Speech to the Ensigns--The Battle of the Standards--Royalty
and Riflemen--Outrages in Ireland--“Endymion”--Death of George
Eliot.
If 1880 opened cheerfully, it was solely because men felt a sense of
relief at getting rid of what they called “the bad old year.” It had
begun with bitter frosts, varied by black fogs. Its spring was a
prolonged winter. Cold gloom marked its dog-days. There was no summer
worth recording, and as for autumn, October and November saw the
crops rotting in the fields. Farmers and squires, like Sheridan, were
striving “to live on their debts.” Two great bank failures--that of the
City of Glasgow Bank and that of the West of England Bank--had shaken
the fabric of credit and reduced thousands of the well-to-do middle
class to penury, while trade seemed going from bad to worse. Even
science and invention appeared to be in a conspiracy to ruin people,
for Edison’s contrivance of the electric lamp frightened investors in
gas shares into a panic, which seriously depreciated the value of their
property. Disasters in war, which are courteously called blunders, were
followed by catastrophes by flood and field, which it is customary to
call accidents. The ghastly tale of misfortunes was completed by the
frightful hurricane that swept over the country on the last Sunday of
the old year. At half-past seven of the evening of that day a furious
gust swept down the Firth of Tay and cut a section out of the great
railway bridge that spanned the estuary. A train crossing at the moment
was blown, with the wreckage of the bridge and its precious freight
of human life, into the surly waters of the Firth.[151] Very promptly
did the Queen instruct Sir Henry Ponsonby to telegraph from Osborne a
sympathetic message from her to the relatives of the dead.[152] Her
Majesty had herself crossed the bridge on her way to Balmoral, and the
shock of the disaster struck her to the heart.
It was when the people were moodily pondering over the evil fate
of England under the Government that was to have given it rest and
prosperity, that Lord Beaconsfield’s opponents became unusually
active. Mr. Gladstone reprinted his speech on Finance which he had
delivered in Edinburgh in November (1879), and reminded the electors
how Lord Beaconsfield, after promising to repeal the Income Tax in
1874, had raised it; how in bad times he had increased expenditure,
whereas in good times the Liberals had reduced it; how he had imposed
£6,000,000 more taxes than he remitted, whereas the Liberals remitted
£12,500,000 more than they imposed; how he had transformed a surplus
into a deficit, and kept on rolling up debt, instead of paying off
the nation’s liabilities as they were incurred. There was a stroke of
high art in publishing this sombre speech when the New Year opened.
Sir Stafford Northcote had, at Leeds, essayed a mild and apologetic
reply to it. Mr. Gladstone thus considered it necessary, when men were
beginning to suspect that they were ruled by a Government of bad luck,
to answer Sir Stafford in an appendix to the November speech, which
tended to deepen the prevailing depression of spirits. Sir William
Harcourt, in his New Year orations at Oxford, on the other hand, dealt
with the Government from a comic point of view. He touched with caustic
wit on their incongruities and inconsistencies, and by contrasting
their swelling words with their small deeds, their affluence of promise
with their poverty of performance, contrived to create an impression
that Ministers were making the country the laughing-stock of the world.
When Mr. Gladstone showed that the nation was being ruined, Sir William
Harcourt immediately followed up by declaring, in speeches which
everybody read, because they were amusing and personal, that it was
being ruined by a group of mountebanks. To him succeeded Mr. Bright,
who, at a Liberal banquet at Birmingham (20th of January), elaborately
explained how that which had happened was only what might have been
looked for. He exhibited, from the treasure-house of his memory, an
interminable series of examples to illustrate one simple thesis. It was
that the history of England had ever been a tragic conflict between the
Spirits of Good and Evil--the Tory Party representing the Spirit of
Evil. His political Manichæism would not have influenced the country if
it had not been downhearted. Inasmuch as it manifestly affected public
opinion, it ought to have warned Lord Beaconsfield that the people
were out of humour with him. The Tories, however, had eyes and ears
for nothing, save Sir William Harcourt’s jokes and gibes, and flouts
and sneers. These were not highly refined or polished, but they were
just what was wanted to make the average voter laugh at Imperialism.
The Imperialists being sensitive, not to say short-tempered persons,
instead of pleading their own case rationally before the country,
spent their force in vituperative attacks on Sir William Harcourt. It
was also the misfortune of Lord Beaconsfield, that at this juncture
he became nervous over the growing hostility of the clergy of all
denominations to his foreign policy, the tone of which they deemed
anti-Christian.
A desperate effort which was made to counteract this impression,
displayed Sir Henry Layard at Constantinople--an Envoy who was supposed
to be more Turkish than the Turks--figuring as a champion of the Cross
against the Crescent. People, in fact, were startled at the beginning
of the year to learn that the Government had suspended diplomatic
relations with Turkey, because the Turkish authorities had threatened
to execute a Mussulman schoolmaster for helping an Anglican missionary
to translate the Bible.[153] Sir Henry Layard had been unmoved by the
massacre and judicial murder of thousands of Christian subjects of the
Sultan in Epirus, Macedonia, and Armenia, in defiance of Treaty law.
It was, therefore, amazing that he should have suddenly burst into a
convulsion of diplomatic wrath because a Turkish Court
[Illustration: THE FIRST TAY BRIDGE, FROM THE SOUTH.]
passed on a Turkish Mussulman the sentence appointed by the law of his
race and creed for an act which, when done by him, was legally a crime.
Still, from the point of view of the practical statesman on the eve
of a General Election, the step taken by Sir Henry Layard would not
have been open to criticism merely because of its inconsistency and
injustice. The fatal objection to it was that, whilst it failed to
conciliate the religious world, it made the Government seem ineffably
ridiculous to the electors. The foreign policy that was to give England
ascendency in the councils of Europe, had reduced her to such a poor
pass that, at Constantinople, Sir Henry Layard had to threaten war ere
the Porte would even listen to his appeal for clemency to the obscurest
of offenders against the letter of a harsh and obsolete law. Nor was
the situation improved as the quarrel developed. The Turks resolutely
refused even to deliver up Dr. Köller’s MSS., which they hardly had any
right to keep, and it was not till the German Ambassador interfered
on behalf of the English missionary that they were restored. When Sir
Henry Layard pressed for the dismissal of Hafiz Pasha, he was foiled
by the Sultan averring that he, and not the Minister, had ordered the
arrest of Ahmed Tewfik. After Lord Beaconsfield’s Guildhall eulogies on
the Sultan, Ministers were seriously embarrassed by this new turn in
the affair. Ultimately the intervention of Germany and Austria induced
the Sultan, who listened to the menaces of the British Government
with imperturbable serenity, to offer concessions. He still refused
Sir Henry Layard’s demand for the annulment of the sentence of death
on Ahmed Tewfik. But he offered to commute it by exiling Ahmed to a
remote Turkish island with a Christian population. He also ordered
Hafiz Pasha, the Minister of Police, to apologise.[154] The commutation
of Ahmed’s sentence meant that, though England had saved him from the
gallows, “Kismet” had destined him for a premature grave. The apology
from Hafiz was immediately converted into a further insult to the
British Government, for, as soon as it had been delivered, the Sultan
decorated him with the Grand Cordon of the Medjidie. Nor was this act
quite atoned for by the issue of an Imperial edict forbidding the
Mohammedan Press to laugh at the British Ambassador. It was, therefore,
easy to predict that the Queen’s Speech would be demure, if not
actually meek in tone, when it touched on Foreign Affairs.
[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE: A PEEP FROM THE DEAN’S GARDEN.]
Parliament was opened on the 5th of February, and her Majesty’s Speech
was read by the Lord Chancellor. Events, according to the Royal
Message, still tended to safeguard the peace of Europe on the basis
of the Berlin Treaty, and the Sultan had signed a Convention for the
suppression of the Slave Trade. The abdication of the Ameer rendered
it impossible to recall the army of occupation. But the Government, in
their dealings with Afghanistan, merely desired to strengthen their
Indian frontier and preserve the independence of that State. The
success of Sir Garnet Wolseley’s policy in South Africa was touched
on. It was stated that the Irish authorities had been instructed to
make special provisions for coping with distress in Ireland, which
would necessitate an Indemnity Bill; and a Criminal Code Bill, a
Bankruptcy Bill, a Lunacy Bill, and a Conveyancing Bill were promised.
Mr. Cross had, at the end of the previous Session, also promised a
Bill to transfer the Metropolitan Water Companies to the ratepayers
of London. The debates on the Address were uninteresting. The Tories
tried to discredit their opponents by proving that in election contests
they angled for the Irish vote by promising to support an inquiry
into the demand for Home Rule. The Liberals retorted by proving that
though Lord Beaconsfield was ever ready to pass sentence of political
excommunication on Home Rulers, he was equally ready to confer honours
on Home Rulers,[155] that the Home Rule movement was started by
Tories, and that it was a rich Tory who found the money for the Fenian
candidature of O’Donovan Rossa in Tipperary.
The Irish Relief Bill was introduced on the 7th, and read a second time
on the 23rd of February. It granted loans to the amount of £1,092,985
without interest for two years and a half, but bearing 1 per cent.
interest after that time, to landlords and sanitary authorities for
works of improvement; it also permitted the Baronial Sessions to
start such works, and relaxed the law of out-door relief. Most of the
Irish members complained that as a measure of relief, the Bill was
inadequate. Some, like Mr. Synan, objected to the loans being taken
from the Irish Church surplus. Others wished Boards of Guardians to
be able to give out-door relief in money, and to take up loans for
improvements. The Bill was passed on the 15th of March, and Major Nolan
also passed a Seed Bill which enabled poor farmers to get seeds on
loan. It is now clear that the Government had no true conception of the
state of Ireland. They had been satisfied with the jaunty assurances of
the Chief Secretary, Mr. Lowther, in the previous year, that there was
no exceptional agrarian distress in that country. Yet, as a matter of
fact, a famine was imminent, and at the beginning of 1880 the Duchess
of Marlborough, wife of the Lord-Lieutenant, and Mr. E. Dwyer Gray,
Lord Mayor of Dublin, were compelled to start Relief Funds to avert
that dreadful calamity.
Even with this evidence before them, the Tory Ministry in 1880 fell
into a blunder worthy of the Whigs in 1847-9. They adopted the fatal
Whig principle, that the best way to relieve the Irish peasant’s
distress was to vote the relief money to be doled out in wages by
his landlord, who, by rack-renting and evictions had aggravated that
distress, and who, though in most cases an absentee, was yet for
some inexplicable reason supposed to be the best almoner the State
could find in Ireland.[156] That this mistake was made can only be
accounted for by the fact that Lord Beaconsfield’s advanced age, and
his absorption in Foreign Affairs, rendered it possible for his less
competent colleagues to control his policy.[157]
However, all Englishmen were predisposed to believe that Mr.
Gladstone’s Land Act of 1870 had averted famine for ever from Ireland.
They did not know that it had broken down because it made no provision
against rack-renting, and, therefore, no real provision against unjust
eviction. It permitted eviction in cases where a tenant was unable
to pay rent; so that, in order to evict, a landlord had merely to
put up his rent to the point at which the tenant could not pay it,
the tenant’s claim for improvements on eviction being in such a case
usually swallowed up in long out-standing arrears. It was quite obvious
to those who looked beneath the surface that the coming question was
the agrarian difficulty in Ireland. And yet the Ministry treated it
as a matter of trivial importance, a blunder which, however, was also
committed by the majority of Liberals, who were convinced that Mr.
Gladstone’s Land Act had brought content to Ireland.
Still, the Session was quiet and business-like, and the Liberal leaders
were studiously polite to Ministers. They helped to pass a Standing
Order checking obstruction, hinting that it was not strong enough. By
these tactics they artfully neutralised the insinuation that they were
fishing for the Home Rule vote.[158] But it was clear that Parliament
was moribund and quite “gravelled for lack of matter.” It could not
legally survive another year; in fact, since the sixteenth century
only four Parliaments had existed as long. Naturally public opinion
was pressing for a dissolution, and it merely remained for Ministers
to select the “psychological moment” which was most advantageous
to themselves for going to the country. Lord Beaconsfield suddenly
resolved in spring not to exhaust his mandate, and on the 8th of
March Sir Stafford Northcote intimated that the Budget would be
brought in before Easter, and that, after taking formal and necessary
business, Parliament would be dissolved. Lord Beaconsfield was guided
to this step by three considerations. He thought that the glamour of
his Asiatic Imperialism still blinded the eyes of the nation to the
disasters in Afghanistan and South Africa. He imagined that, because
the returns from three bye-elections were favourable to the Tory
Party, public opinion was still with him.[159] He trusted that Mr.
Cross’s Water Bill would consolidate the popularity of the Ministry,
not only in the Capital, but among municipal reformers all over
the country. This last forecast was most untoward. When Mr. Cross
produced his Water Bill on the 2nd of March, the _Standard_, which
was the organ of the Ministry in the Press, suddenly deserted its
Party and its leaders, and assailed Mr. Cross’s scheme with astounding
ferocity.[160] The opposition of the _Standard_ at the critical moment
not only depressed the spirits of the Tories, but also forced the hand
of the “independent” newspapers, who had up till now supported Lord
Beaconsfield loyally. They could not be more royalist than the King, so
they, too, poured forth their invective on Mr. Cross’s Bill. The effect
of this sudden attack of the whole metropolitan Press was to paralyse a
vast body of metropolitan opinion that up till then had run in favour
of the Ministry. “It came into power on beer,” said a malicious Liberal
one afternoon in the Tea-room of the House of Commons, “and it will
float out on water.” A more cautious statesman would have postponed
dissolution till a happier moment; but Lord Beaconsfield persisted
in appealing to the people, and the Government passed an Electoral
Bill repealing the law which prohibited candidates from paying for
the carriage of voters to the poll. It was obvious that in the coming
struggle the Tories were at least resolved to give the rich men on both
sides all the advantages of their opulence.
When the Budget was produced Sir Stafford Northcote had a sad tale to
tell. His revenue for the past year, instead of yielding £83,055,000,
only yielded £80,860,000, showing a deficit of £2,195,000, to which had
to be added
[Illustration: AFTER THE MIDLOTHIAN VICTORY: MR. GLADSTONE ADDRESSING
THE CROWD FROM THE BALCONY OF LORD ROSEBERY’S HOUSE, GEORGE STREET,
EDINBURGH. (_From the Picture in “The Graphic.”_)]
supplementary estimates for South Africa, bringing it up to £3,340,000.
For the coming year, however, he estimated, supposing there were no
changes of taxation, a revenue of £81,560,000, and an expenditure of
£81,486,472. But it was no longer possible to postpone payment of past
deficits. These had accumulated to a sum of £8,000,000. He proposed to
pay this off by creating £6,000,000 of annuities terminable in five
years, and meeting the yearly charge for them by adding £800,000 a
year to the service of the National Debt. As this would relieve the
Government from its existing payments for interest on Exchequer Bonds,
the fresh revenue needed to meet the payments for the new annuities
in reality came to £589,000, and not £800,000. As to the remaining
£2,000,000 of deficits, Sir Stafford Northcote seemed to trust to
luck for their payment. The additional revenue he proposed to get by
a revision of the Probate Duty. As he increased the Succession Duty
on personal property, and left that on land untouched, the Budget was
extremely unpopular with the landless class. But even his scheme as it
stood, with its £6,000,000 added for five years to the National Debt,
and its £2,000,000 of postponed deficits, involved the sacrifice of his
Sinking Fund for paying off the debt. Virtually the Government told the
electors that they had brought Britain to such a pass, that she had to
abandon for five years her scheme for paying off her National Debt, in
order to clear off £6,000,000 of their deficits.
On the 24th of March Parliament was dissolved, and the new writs were
made returnable on the 29th of April. Lord Beaconsfield’s Manifesto,
however, had been issued in the shape of a letter to the Duke of
Marlborough, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, on the 8th of March. In this
letter he called on the people to support the Ministry in order to give
England an ascendency in the councils of Europe, and check the Home
Rule movement in Ireland, which was “scarcely less disastrous than
pestilence or famine.” This movement had been patronised, he declared,
by the Liberal Party, whose “policy of decomposition” was meant to
destroy the Imperial character of the realm. On the other side, the
leaders traversed all Lord Beaconsfield’s insinuations. They scoffed
at his Foreign Policy, asserted that it was pretentious, futile,
and costly; they denounced his restless turbulence and his bankrupt
finance, and, though they declared against Home Rule, they promised
to give Ireland equal laws and equal rights with England. When the
struggle began it was predicted in London that Lord Beaconsfield’s
majority would be so vastly increased that the Liberals would be
ostracised from power for a generation. As the contest proceeded it was
noticed that at Liberal meetings no man could mention Mr. Gladstone’s
name without being stopped by prolonged outbursts of cheering. That
had happened in 1868, and it was a bad omen, whereupon it was said
that the Tories would come back with only a slight reduction in their
majority. Finally it was admitted, when the first day’s returns came
in, that Lord Beaconsfield’s majority had vanished, and that he himself
had fallen from power. The incidents of the struggle were curious.
Mr. Gladstone’s campaign in the North was a marvellous achievement,
and the sustained passion and energy of his attack on the policy of
the Government, alike in principle and detail, seemed to paralyse
the Tory leaders. Lord Hartington’s political duel with Mr. Cross in
Lancashire completed the wreck of that Minister’s reputation, already
damaged by his abortive Water Bill. Lord Derby’s letter to Lord Sefton
(12th March) intimating his inability to support the Ministry and
his adhesion to the Liberal Party, was a cruel blow, struck at the
Tory Party in their most formidable stronghold. Sir William Harcourt
and Mr. Lowe vied with each other in rendering Ministers ridiculous.
Mr. Bright roused the conscience of the nation against their warlike
policy. Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke stirred the latent
socialistic sympathies of the masses. As for the Irish vote, it was
cast solidly against the Tories, in order to avenge the passage
describing Home Rule in Lord Beaconsfield’s letter. Looking back on
this historic election, it is amazing to find how few Ministerial
speeches of importance were made. Lulled into a false sense of security
by the support of the London Press and the gossip of Pall Mall clubs,
Ministers seem to have permitted their opponents to talk them down.
As for the result, why dwell on it? The first day’s Borough elections
destroyed Lord Beaconsfield’s majority. The Counties deserted him in
the most unaccountable manner. In Scotland the Tory Party was almost
obliterated.[161] In Ireland two-thirds of the Members elected were
Home Rulers. The net result was, that when the Election was over, there
were returned 351 Liberals, 237 Tories, and 65 Home Rulers. The verdict
of the country, therefore, was this: the electors were more afraid
of Lord Beaconsfield’s Foreign Policy than of Mr. Gladstone’s Irish
Nationalist sympathies. The sweeping reforms which he was pledged to
demand and support by his Midlothian speeches did not displease the
country so much as Lord Beaconsfield’s manifest reluctance to pledge
himself to a strong programme of domestic legislation.
While the elections were taking place the Queen was abroad.
Little dreaming that the verdict of the people would destroy Lord
Beaconsfield’s Ministry, she had arranged to visit Hesse-Darmstadt to
be present at the confirmation of the daughters of the late Princess
Alice, and after that ceremony to spend a brief holiday at Baden. Her
Majesty returned to England on the 17th of April, and on the 28th of
April Ministers resigned office. Lord Beaconsfield was not present on
the occasion. He had bade farewell to the Queen on the previous day.
After the results of the Election were known strenuous efforts were
made to prevent Mr. Gladstone from becoming Prime Minister. The general
opinion, however, was that, as Lord Beaconsfield’s fall from power was
due mainly to Mr. Gladstone’s energetic and persistent criticism of
his policy, Mr. Gladstone ought to take the responsibility of forming
a Government. His own views on the subject can be gleaned from two
letters which he wrote to Mr. Hayward. In one he seems to resent the
idea of taking any office lower than that of the Premiership, supposing
he took office at all.[162] In another he tries to explain away a
statement he was alleged to have made to a reporter of the _Gaulois_,
who asked him in November, 1879, if he would resume office, and to whom
he replied, “No; I am now out of the question.” He (the reporter), says
Mr. Gladstone, “rejoined, ‘_Mais vos compatriotes vont vous forcer_.’
I said, ‘_C’est à eux à déterminer, mais je n’en vois aucun signe!_’
I meant by these words to get out of this branch of the discussion as
easily as I could. My duty is clear: it is to hold fast by Granville
and Hartington, and try to promote the union and efficiency of the
Party led by them.”[163]
In the ordinary course it was the duty of the Queen to send first for
the actual Leader of the Opposition, who was Lord Granville. On the
contrary, the first Liberal statesman summoned to Windsor was Lord
Hartington, who, when he arrived there on the 22nd of April, it was
remarked, declined the use of one of the Royal carriages, and strolled
in a leisurely manner to the Castle. He informed her Majesty that
a Liberal Ministry which was not headed by Mr. Gladstone could not
command the confidence of the country. Next day the Queen sent for Lord
Granville, who went to Windsor, accompanied by Lord Hartington. His
advice was to entrust Mr. Gladstone with the formation of a Cabinet.
They returned to London, and, after an interview with them, Mr.
Gladstone proceeded to Windsor and received the Queen’s commission to
organise a Government. Whenever Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister the
Whigs (who had secretly done their utmost as a Party to prevent his
return to office) swarmed round him like a cloud of locusts. The Whigs
and moderate Liberals were, as of old, to have all the comfortable
places.
As for the Radicals, they would, it was suggested, be amply repaid for
their services by a few of the minor offices under the Government, by
including Mr. Bright and Mr. Forster in the Cabinet, and by offering
a seat to Mr. Stansfeld, whose health prevented him from accepting
it. That, however, was not the view of the Radicals. North of the
Humber they constituted the bulk of the Liberal Party. Their system
of representative Party organisation, invented in Birmingham and
popularised by Mr. Chamberlain, had enabled them to consolidate the
opposition to the Tories, to prevent double candidatures, and to win
seats that, under a looser form of discipline, it would have been
hopeless to contest. If Mr. Gladstone was the Napoleon,
[Illustration: MR. CHAMBERLAIN.
(_From a Photograph by Russell and Sons._)]
Mr. Chamberlain was the Carnot of the campaign. The cry went forth
that some uncompromising Radical must have a seat in the Cabinet, and
Mr. Chamberlain was suggested as the fittest person to select. But
what had Mr. Chamberlain done? His speeches--hard, brilliant, and
clever--were permeated with “socialism.” Good Tory matrons were said to
frighten their unruly babes with the whisper of his name. In Parliament
he had chiefly distinguished himself by his obstructive tactics and
his revolt against Lord Hartington’s leadership. He was even a more
persistent opponent of the Monarchy than Sir Charles Dilke, who had
abandoned the advocacy of Republicanism for the critical study of
Foreign Affairs. Mr. Gladstone’s chief objection to Mr. Chamberlain
was that he had no official training. Lord Hartington (who knew, to
his cost, that his obstructive opposition in the House of Commons
could be most embarrassing), on the other hand, was in favour of
including Mr. Chamberlain in the Cabinet. So was Lord Granville, who
probably thought that there was no surer way of muzzling a dangerous
Republican than that of making him a Cabinet Minister. Still, the
Whig antagonism to Mr. Chamberlain was too strong to be ignored, and
a compromise was arrived at when office was offered to Sir Charles
Dilke. He, however, refused to take any place unless one advanced
Radical, at least, was included in the Cabinet, and he said that Mr.
Chamberlain should be chosen. After much intriguing Mr. Gladstone
yielded, and Mr. Chamberlain became President of the Board of Trade.
At the end of April the Cabinet was complete. Mr. Gladstone combined
the two offices of Premier and Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord
Selborne was Lord Chancellor; Lord Granville, Foreign Secretary; Sir
William Harcourt, Home Secretary; Lord Hartington, Indian Secretary;
Mr. Childers, War Secretary; Lord Northbrook, First Lord of the
Admiralty; Lord Kimberley, Colonial Secretary; Mr. Bright, Chancellor
of the Duchy of Lancaster; Mr. Forster, Chief Secretary for Ireland;
the Duke of Argyll, Lord Privy Seal; Mr. Dodson, President of the
Local Government Board; Lord Spencer, Lord President of the Council.
Outside the Cabinet, Mr. Fawcett became Postmaster-General; Sir Charles
Dilke, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs (the office which he
specially desired, and for which he was specially qualified); Sir Henry
James, Attorney-General; Sir Farrer Herschel, Solicitor-General; Mr.
Mundella, Vice-President of the Council; Mr. Adam (the famous Whip),
First Commissioner of Works; and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, Secretary to the
Admiralty. Mr. Lowe was sent to the Upper House with a Peerage as Lord
Sherbrooke. Mr. Goschen (whose opposition to any extension of Household
Franchise to the counties rendered him impossible as a Cabinet
Minister) was sent as a Special Ambassador to Constantinople. Sir H.
A. Layard was not recalled, but he was granted an indefinite leave of
absence. Lord Lytton having resigned the Indian Viceroyalty, Lord Ripon
was appointed in his place.
No sooner had Parliament met, on the 29th of April, than it was
apparent that one gentleman had read aright the lesson to be derived
from Mr. Chamberlain’s successful career. To prove that one’s capacity
for obstruction was not inferior to that of Mr. Parnell, to reform on
a popular basis the organisation of one’s Party, and to flout openly
on fitting occasions the authority of one’s leader, these, argued Lord
Randolph Churchill, are the keys that unlock the doors of the Cabinet.
He, together with Sir H. D. Wolff, Mr. A. J. Balfour, and Mr. Gorst,
organised a small band of Tory obstructionists called the Fourth Party,
who hoped, by their unscrupulous tactics in embarrassing Mr. Gladstone,
that their gibes at Sir Stafford Northcote’s prudent leadership would
be forgiven. Their first opportunity for wasting the time of the
House arrived when Mr. Bradlaugh, the Member for Northampton, came
forward to be sworn on the 3rd of May. Mr. Bradlaugh was notoriously
an Atheist, and he claimed to make an affirmation. At first the Fourth
Party did not move in the matter, but the Speaker doubted if he could
affirm, and a Select Committee appointed to consider the question,
reported that he could not. Lord Frederick Cavendish had, in nominating
the Committee, included several members who being Ministers would have
to stand for re-election, and Sir Drummond Wolff and his friends raised
an acrimonious debate by objecting to the names of gentlemen who were
not technically members of the House being appointed to the Committee.
On the 21st of May Mr. Bradlaugh came forward and claimed to take the
oath. This the Fourth Party opposed as revolting to their consciences,
for had not Mr. Bradlaugh publicly declared that as he was an Atheist
the religious sanction in the oath was to him meaningless? There was no
precedent for refusing to swear a member. The law seemed to be that it
was his duty to his constituents to get himself sworn. But the point
was referred to another Committee, and they reported that Mr. Bradlaugh
could not be sworn. The absurdity of this proceeding is easily
illustrated. In the Parliament of 1886, Mr. Bradlaugh was allowed to
take the oath without a word of protest from the conscience-seared
pietists of the Fourth Party. But by that time most of them had become
Ministers, and were not anxious to encourage the obstruction of public
business. On the 21st of June Mr. Labouchere, the senior member for
Northampton, moved that Mr. Bradlaugh be allowed to affirm. The motion
was rejected on the 22nd of June by a vote of 275 to 230, and when Mr.
Bradlaugh, after speaking in his defence, refused to leave the bar, Sir
Stafford Northcote carried a motion that he be imprisoned in the Clock
Tower. This step made the House the laughing-stock of the nation, and
the Tories promptly released Mr. Bradlaugh from his luxurious retreat.
On the 1st of July Mr. Gladstone moved and carried a resolution
allowing Mr. Bradlaugh to affirm at his own risk, and subject to
any penalties he might incur by doing so, if it were found by the
Courts that he had broken the law. Three points had been gained. Lord
Randolph Churchill and his friends had forced Sir Stafford Northcote
to follow their lead. They had blocked Government business. They had,
to some extent, disseminated an impression abroad that the Cabinet was
a champion of Atheism--and no doubt there were many good people who
looked with suspicion on Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright for endeavouring
to prevent Northampton from being disfranchised by a combination of
faction and bigotry in the House of Commons.
During the interval between the appointment of the Ministry and the
reading of the Queen’s Speech, a last attempt was made by the foreign
allies of Lord Beaconsfield--and not without some success--to damage
the new Government. One of the strange incidents of the Election had
been the appearance every morning in the London papers of extracts
from the Continental Press urging the English people to vote for Lord
Beaconsfield’s supporters. Lord Beaconsfield, as the candidate of the
foreigner, was pressed on the constituencies with abject servility by
Tory speakers, who, if they had reflected for a moment, must have seen
that they were deeply offending the insular instincts and prejudices
of Englishmen. But the zenith of imprudence was attained when one
morning a semi-official telegram purporting to emanate from the
British Embassy at Vienna, appeared in a Ministerial organ informing
Englishmen that it was the august desire of the Emperor of Austria that
Mr. Gladstone should be defeated in Midlothian. No Englishman will
tolerate, even from a foreign Emperor, any interference between him and
his constituents during a contested election. Mr. Gladstone accordingly
treated the Emperor of Austria as if he had been an interloper from the
Carlton Club, who had come down to Midlothian to give extraneous aid
to Lord Dalkeith, the Conservative candidate. He snubbed the successor
of the Cæsars mercilessly, and greatly to the delight of the British
Democracy. This called forth a denial from Sir Henry Elliot that the
Emperor of Austria had ever used the words attributed to him, though
Sir Henry did not explain how the correspondent of the _Standard_ had
come to publish them. Mr. Gladstone retorted that the interest of
Austria in preventing his election lay in his known determination to
upset her plans for absorbing the heritage of the rising nationalities
in Turkey. Austria had always shown herself to be an incompetent
tyrant in dealing with subject races, and his warning to the Austrian
intriguers, who hoped, if Lord Beaconsfield were returned to power, to
make a dash for Salonica, was “Hands Off.” When Mr. Gladstone became
Premier this speech was brought up for dissection. Would his Ministry
quarrel with Austria? Would Count Karolyi ask for his papers? Then
two long telegrams from Vienna were published in the Times, of date
28th of April and 6th of May, semi-officially denying that Austria was
conspiring to make a dash for Salonica. Her sole desire now was to
stand by the Treaty of Berlin. Count Karolyi had some interviews with
Lord Granville on the subject, and in return for assurances of Austrian
loyalty and goodwill, he pressed for some expression of opinion from
Mr. Gladstone that would allay irritation in Vienna. Mr. Hayward
seems to have been asked to use his influence over Mr. Gladstone
to get him to make this explanation. Mr. Gladstone accordingly, in
a letter to Count Karolyi (4th of May), declared that since he had
become a Minister he had resolved not to defend by argument polemical
language which he had used in a position of “greater freedom and less
responsibility.” He wished Austria well. He had threatened to thwart
her policy solely because the evidence at his command indicated that
she was hostile to the freedom of the rising nationalities of Turkey.
But he accepted the assurances of Count Karolyi that Austria had no
designs against that freedom, and added, “Had I been in possession
of such an assurance as I have now been able to receive, I never
would have uttered any one of the words which your Excellency justly
describes as of a painful and wounding character.” The moment this
letter was published, the Austrian organs in England, indeed, every
Tory speaker and writer, made political capital out of it. The Premier
was held up to odium for having humiliated England by an apology
which was, undoubtedly, somewhat too exuberant. The people would have
been better pleased if Mr. Gladstone had replied that an explanation
should have been sought when it was possible for him to give it as
the candidate for Midlothian. To ask for it now was to assume that a
foreign potentate had a right to expect the Prime Minister of England
to apologise for what he might choose to say, as a private person,
fighting a contested election.
[Illustration: OLD PALACE OF THE PRINCE OF MONTENEGRO, CETTIGNE.]
Difficulties of a more serious character soon gathered round the
Ministry. The Turks refused to make those concessions of territory
to Montenegro and Greece which had been recommended by the Treaty of
Berlin. Lord Granville succeeded in uniting the European Powers in a
vain attempt to induce Turkey to fulfil her obligations. The Porte was
warned that, unless Dulcigno was given up to Montenegro by a certain
date, the Powers would resort to coercion. When that date arrived
the European Fleets assembled at Ragusa, under the command of Sir
Beauchamp Seymour, to make a naval demonstration against Turkey, but,
as the captains of the ships were prohibited from firing a shot, the
naval demonstration amused rather than alarmed the Porte. At this point
Mr. Gladstone hit on a happy expedient for bringing the Sultan to
reason. He threatened to send a British fleet to Smyrna, and, though
France refused to join in the scheme, Russia and Italy were willing to
act with England. The mere threat was sufficient. The customs dues of
the port of Smyrna supplied the only ready money on which the Sultan
could depend for the payment of his household expenses. Mr. Gladstone’s
intention plainly was to intercept or impound these moneys till Turkey
fulfilled her obligations; and the Sultan, alarmed at the prospect,
instructed Dervish Pasha to hand over Dulcigno to the Montenegrins. The
Greeks were less fortunate. Finding that they could get no concessions
from Turkey by diplomacy, they threatened war. But, under pressure from
the European Powers, they were held down, and the diplomatists again
undertook to reconsider their claims.
In India Lord Lytton resigned. One of his last acts was to deliver
a contemptuous speech refuting Mr. Gladstone’s suggestion that the
finances of that Dependency were in a state of confusion. To the very
last Lord Lytton endeavoured to persuade the English people that
the Afghan War had cost only six millions of money, and his Finance
Minister (Sir John Strachey) produced a most comforting “Prosperity
Budget.” It had, however, one defect. As Lord Hartington discovered
when he went to the India Office, a trifling sum of £9,000,000 sterling
had been dropped out of the expenditure side of the Afghan War
accounts; in other words, a mistake which would have been called by a
very ugly name indeed had it been made in the office of a bank or of a
railway company, had been made at the expense of the British taxpayer
by the Indian Government. While Lord Lytton was assuring England that
the war was costing £200,000 a month, it was costing £500,000. Nay,
for two years he had been paying away this excess of expenditure over
estimates without knowing it, or getting from the Treasury a monthly
statement of the money spent on the war! But the position of affairs in
Afghanistan was rapidly becoming unendurable. England held Cabul as the
Emperor Augustus held Rome--like a man who had a wolf by the ear. Lord
Lytton recognised Shere Ali Khan as independent Wali of Candahar, and
the ex-Ameer Yakoob was a prisoner in India. But Abdurrahman Khan (a
grandson of Dost Mahommed, and an exile in Russia) was a pretender for
the throne; and so was the warlike Ayoob Khan, a son of the ex-Ameer,
Shere Ali. Ayoob was, moreover, marching from Herat against the British
at Candahar with a force of fierce irregular troops.
When Mr. Gladstone’s Government took office they began by trying to
discover a Prince who could take Afghanistan off their hands, and for
that purpose they tried to treat with Abdurrahman Khan. Unfortunately,
Candahar was not only held by a weak force under General Primrose, but
it had been decided by the Indian authorities to still further weaken
it by sending General Burrows with a moiety of its garrison--some 2,000
men--to meet Ayoob Khan, and co-operate with the troops of the Wali of
Candahar in checking the advance of the Heratees. The troops of the
Wali, however, deserted to Ayoob Khan, and on the 27th of July Burrows
and his small force were overwhelmed by the Heratees at Maiwand. The
line of their retreat was covered with the bodies of those who perished
by the way, and comparatively few survivors arrived to tell the tale
of their terrible disaster. Of course Candahar was now at the mercy of
Ayoob Khan, and it was known that the fall of that stronghold would
shake the foundations of the British Empire in India. At this critical
moment Sir Frederick Roberts saved the situation. He set forth from
Cabul with a picked force of 10,000 men, and by a marvellous series
of forced marches he arrived in time to defeat Ayoob Khan and rescue
Candahar. Ere this crowning victory was won, it had been settled that
Abdurrahman was to be the new Ameer of Afghanistan, and as the year
closed the British Army of occupation had quitted Sherpore on its
homeward march to India.
The mischievous policy of annexation which had been pursued in South
Africa was now bearing fruit. When the Transvaal Republic was annexed
Englishmen were told that the Boers desired annexation. As a matter
of fact, the Boers never meant to submit to the loss of their
independence. When the Boers in the Transvaal asked for the restoration
of their rights, they were told by Sir Bartle Frere that England would
never concede their claims; though, as a matter of fact, no sane
Englishman had ever dreamt of holding the Transvaal Republic by an
army of occupation against the will of its people. The effect of these
misrepresentations was somewhat neutralised by Boer deputations who
visited England, by Radicals like Mr. Courtney, and Home Rulers like
Mr. Parnell and Mr. F. H. O’Donnell, who warned Englishmen that the
Boers were discontented, and that they would rise in insurrection. Mr.
Gladstone, too, in his election speeches kept alive Boer aspirations
for independence, by condemning their enforced subjection to a British
Colonial bureaucracy. The Boers ultimately rebelled, the occasion of
the revolt being the refusal of a citizen at Pretoria to pay an illegal
claim made on him by the Treasury. On the 13th of December, 1880, at
Heidelberg, they proclaimed a Republic under the Triumvirate of Kruger,
Joubert, and Pretorius. A collision between the insurgents and British
troops under Colonel Anstruther occurred at Bronkhorst Spruit, which
ended in the defeat of the latter; and as the year closed, General Sir
George Pomeroy Colley was making a futile effort to quell the rising
and reconquer the Transvaal.
The Ministerial programme of domestic legislation was popular, but it
[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE: QUEEN ELIZABETH’S LIBRARY, FROM THE
QUADRANGLE.]
took a long time to carry it out. At the end of July business was
seriously in arrear, and yet Ministers said that they were determined
to push on all their Bills. Towards the end of August no great progress
had been made, and the proposal of a Session which might be prolonged
into October was seriously discussed. The obstructive strategy devised
by Mr. Parnell in Lord Beaconsfield’s Parliament was now developed with
great success by the little band of Tories called the Fourth Party,
under the leadership of Lord Randolph Churchill. Their method differed
from Mr. Parnell’s in one point. He obstructed great measures in mass,
so to speak. The Fourth Party organised persistent and systematic
obstruction in detail, that is to say, they wasted small scraps of time
all through a sitting at odd moments, the cumulative effect of which
was most serious. Nor did they on this account refrain from obstruction
on the system practised by Mr. Parnell when occasion served, only
they carried it on without raising the clamant scandals that spring
from prolonged and melodramatic sittings. At the end of August their
efforts provoked Lord Hartington into revealing the fact that in the
course of the Session Mr. Gorst had made 105 speeches and asked 18
questions, that Lord Randolph Churchill had made 74 speeches and asked
21 questions, that Sir H. Drummond Wolff had made 68 speeches and asked
34 questions, while three Irish Members had delivered 160 speeches
and asked 30 questions. In fact, six Members (Lord Randolph Churchill,
Mr. Gorst, Sir H. D. Wolff, Mr. Biggar, Mr. O’Connor, and Mr. Finigan)
had delivered during the Session 407 speeches. Still, the Government
persevered and, after Lord Hartington’s exposure of the tactics of
the Opposition, business progressed more rapidly. A Burials Bill,
allowing Dissenting ministers to hold services in parish churchyards
at the burial of their dead, was passed. Sir William Harcourt passed
a Bill giving farmers an inalienable right to kill hares and rabbits.
Mr. Dodson’s Employers’ Liability Bill was fiercely obstructed, but
it passed and gave great satisfaction to the working classes. It made
employers responsible for accidents to their work-people where the
accident was traceable to the conduct of the master’s representative,
or any workman or person who might reasonably be supposed to be his
representative. In the House of Lords, it is true, Lord Beaconsfield
succeeded in limiting the operation of the Bill to two years, but this
period was extended to seven years by the Commons. The Supplementary
Estimates had devoured the small surplus which Sir Stafford Northcote’s
Budget showed in March. Hence on the 10th of June Mr. Gladstone
brought in a Supplementary Budget, in which he abolished the Malt Tax,
substituting for it a Beer Duty, reduced the duties on light foreign
wines, increased and readjusted the licence duties on the sale of
spirits, and added a penny to the Income Tax. The general result was
that a final surplus of £381,000 could be shown on the year’s accounts.
Nothing could be more embarrassing than the condition of Ireland
when Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister. The Home Rulers returned
sixty-eight members to the House of Commons, and, though a few of
them were lukewarm Nationalists, they had organised themselves into
a separate Party, under the leadership of Mr. Parnell. He plainly
indicated that they would make use of the feuds between the Opposition
and the Government to further their own cause. Mr. Gladstone and
Mr. Forster first of all decided to rule Ireland without coercive
legislation. But during the debates on the Address to the Crown it
was made manifest that they had no clear idea of the extent to which
agrarian distress prevailed in Ireland; that they ignored the alarming
increase of harsh evictions, which were certain to excite the peasantry
to savage deeds of retaliation; that they failed to understand how
famine had been averted solely by the charitable funds raised during
the previous year; and that they accordingly did not mean to reopen
the Land Question. The Irish Party, therefore, at the outset ranged
themselves with the Opposition, and even sat beside the Tories below
the gangway on the left side of the Speaker’s chair. They began
operations by bringing in a Bill to suspend evictions for non-payment
of rent, which the Government opposed. But the case presented by the
Irish Members seemed too serious to be put aside.
It was at last admitted that there was a crisis in Ireland to be dealt
with, and Mr. Forster therefore introduced a short Bill, which so far
amended the Act of 1870 as to make disturbance for non-payment of rent,
where the tenant was too poor to pay, a case for compensation. The
Bill passed through the House of Commons after violent recriminatory
debates, in the course of which Mr. Gladstone declared that in
the distressed districts eviction was “very near to a sentence of
death.”[164] The measure was promptly rejected by the House of Lords.
Ministers acquiesced in this rebuff, and from that moment they lost
their hold over rural Ireland. They had publicly declared that 15,000
persons were to be evicted that year, in circumstances which rendered
eviction tantamount to a sentence of death. They had publicly admitted
that it was wicked to extort rack rents from these persons by threats
of eviction, and that, unless they were protected from the rapacity
of their landlords, the peace of Ireland would be imperilled. And
then they permitted the Peers to reject the protective Bill, which
Mr. Forster had pressed forward as necessary for the preservation of
tranquillity! Either the Government was wrong in introducing the Bill,
or it was wrong to remain responsible for the peace of Ireland after
the Bill had been rejected. All that Mr. Forster did in this crisis
was to promise a new Land Bill next year, and appoint a Commission
to inquire into Irish distress. Rural Ireland had by this time been
completely organised into a Land League by Mr. Michael Davitt, and this
Land League was really a gigantic trades-union, to promote a strike
against rack rents. Incidentally, its organisation was also used to
further the Home Rule cause. The leaders of the League advised the
people to resist eviction, and Mr. John Dillon used words to which
Sir W. Barttelot called attention in the House of Commons on the
17th of August, that seemed to advise a general strike against rent.
Acrimonious debates followed day after day, in the course of which
the hostility between the Parnellites and the Ministry deepened with
every turn. Mr. Parnell’s cynical argument that as Ministers could
not, because of a Parliamentary defeat, carry the Disturbance Bill,
which they admitted was essential for the good government of Ireland,
they ought, as men of honour, to free Ireland from the mischievous
interference of the Imperial Parliament, seemed to cut Mr. Forster to
the quick. At last, in Committee of Supply on the 26th of August,
it was clear that an organised attempt to coerce the Government by
obstruction was to be made. On the motion for going into Supply, Lord
Randolph Churchill raised an irrelevant and discursive debate on the
Irish policy of the Government, which had already been under bitter
discussion for the best part of a fortnight. This set the Parnellites
and the Ministerialists by the ears, and consumed a great part of the
sitting. Then, when the vote for the Irish Police was moved, Lord
Randolph Churchill and the Fourth Party vanished into the background,
and left the work of obstruction to the Parnellites, who kept it up
till one o’clock in the afternoon of the following day (Friday, the
27th of August). The debate was at this stage adjourned till next
Monday, when, after further discussion, the vote was carried. During
these exciting and troublous scenes Mr. Gladstone was absent from the
House of Commons. He had fallen ill on the 4th of July, and had gone
for a cruise in one of Sir Donald Currie’s steamers, the _Grantully
Castle_, to recover his health. During his absence his duties were
taken up by Lord Hartington, who led the House till Mr. Gladstone was
able to reappear on the 3rd of September. On the 6th of September
Parliament was prorogued. But during the recess the condition of
Ireland grew worse and worse. The landlords, dreading the forthcoming
Land Bill, pressed on evictions. The Land League urged the people to
refuse to pay rack rents, and the League had by this time become so
powerful, that it could enforce its decrees almost as surely as if it
had been the regular Government of the country. Its favourite weapon
of coercion was to pronounce against bailiff or landlord, land agent
or “land grabber”--_i.e._, a man who offered to take a farm from which
the tenant had been unjustly evicted--sentence of social ostracism.
The victim of this sentence was not assaulted or outraged, but he
was treated as if he were a leper by his neighbours, and the system
came to be known as “boycotting.”[165] Boycotting was indignantly
assailed in England, and yet it was in itself a mark of progress. Just
as slavery in primitive warfare was an improvement on cannibalism as
a means of disposing of prisoners, so boycotting, carefully carried
out within the law, was an improvement on assassination as a means of
agrarian coercion. But the demand for retaliatory measures against the
Parnellites was loud and strong among the upper and middle classes.
Mr. Forster at last yielded to it, and it was in vain that Mr. Bright
protested in one of his speeches that “force was no remedy.” Outrages
increased in Ireland. The ladies of the Tory aristocracy, and some of
the great Whig families, made arrangements for devoting their _salons_
during the coming Session, to a social campaign against Mr. Chamberlain
and the Radical section of the Cabinet. On the 2nd of November, 1880,
the Irish Attorney-General filed an indictment of nineteen counts,
against Mr. Parnell, Mr. Dillon, and various leaders of the Land
League, for conspiring to incite tenants not to pay rent or take farms
from which the occupiers had been evicted, but the trial, after lasting
for twenty days, broke down, because the jury could not agree on a
verdict. Ere the year ended it was known that the Cabinet, though it
had nearly been broken up by the decision, had at last consented to let
Mr. Forster bring in a strong Coercion Bill next Session.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN PRESENTING THE ALBERT MEDAL TO GEORGE OATLEY,
OF THE COASTGUARD.]
The year was not an eventful one in the family life of the Court.
Before Parliament was dissolved the Queen arranged to visit her
relatives in Germany. The time had come when her granddaughters, the
Princesses Victoria and Elizabeth of Hesse, were to be confirmed, and
she desired to be present at the ceremony. Her Majesty and the Princess
Beatrice (travelling as the Countess of Balmoral and the Countess
Beatrice of Balmoral), attended by Sir H. F. Ponsonby, Viscount
Bridport, and Lady Churchill, left Windsor Castle on the 25th of March,
and embarked at one o’clock on the royal yacht _Victoria and Albert_.
It was intended that the Queen should proceed to Darmstadt to visit the
Grand Duke of Hesse and the tomb of Princess Alice. There the Queen
would be joined by the Prince and Princess of Wales. On the 25th the
Queen and her suite landed at five o’clock at Cherbourg, and entered
their special train. The public were excluded from the stations on
[Illustration: REVIEW IN WINDSOR PARK: CHARGE OF THE 5TH AND 7TH
DRAGOON GUARDS.]
the route, and every effort was made to respect the Queen’s incognito.
The Royal party arrived at Baden-Baden at half-past three in the
afternoon of the 27th, and the Queen drove immediately to the Villa
Hohenlohe, which was to be her residence during her stay. As for her
suite, they were lodged at the Hotel Europe. On the 30th her Majesty,
the Princess Beatrice, and suite, left Baden-Baden by special train for
Darmstadt, where they were received by the Grand Duke and the elder
Princesses of Hesse. A carriage drawn by four horses was in waiting
to convey the Royal party to the Castle, where the Queen occupied the
Assembly Chamber, whilst apartments were allotted to the Princess
Beatrice in the Clock Tower. The Prince and Princess of Wales, who had
left Marlborough House three days before, arrived at Darmstadt on the
29th. On the 31st the Queen and Princess Beatrice, accompanied by the
Grand Duke of Hesse, proceeded at half-past four to the mausoleum on
the Rosenhöhe, where Princess Alice was buried. On the morning of the
same day the Queen, with the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Princess
Beatrice, the German Crown Prince, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess,
and the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden, attended the confirmation of
the Princesses Victoria and Elizabeth, daughters of the Grand Duke of
Hesse. The Queen and Princess Beatrice then returned to Baden on the
1st of April. On April the 16th, on her return from Baden, her Majesty
arrived at Laeken, and was received at the railway station by the
King and Queen of the Belgians and Mr. Lumley, the British Minister.
After visiting the park and grounds of the Palace, and partaking of
luncheon, the Queen left for Flushing. On April the 17th her Majesty
and suite left Flushing for Queenborough, _en route_ for Windsor, where
she arrived in safety, to find the station thronged with residents,
who had gathered to welcome her on her return, while crowds of kindly
spectators lined the way to the Castle. She returned just as the
electoral crisis was over, to find the Ministry she had thought so
stable overthrown, and public opinion not only clamouring for the
dismissal of Lord Beaconsfield from office, but for the return of Mr.
Gladstone to power. On the 27th of April she gave Lord Beaconsfield his
farewell audience, and for the next fortnight was deeply absorbed in
transacting the business incidental to the formation of a new Ministry
amidst distracting intrigues which were not altogether friendly to the
new Ministers.
On the 20th of May the Queen and the Princess Beatrice left Windsor for
Balmoral, and the Prince and Princess of Wales discharged her Majesty’s
social duties during her absence. On her way to her Highland home the
Queen took part in a ceremony of which she was, in fact, the promoter.
During a terrific storm on the 16th of February, a Swedish ship had
been thrown on the rocks near Peterhead. The Coastguard succeeded
in flinging a rocket over the wreck, but the crew were apparently
unable to understand the working of the apparatus. And so, in all
human probability, the vessel would have been lost with all souls
but for the bravery of George Oatley, one of the Coastguard. Oatley,
disregarding every appeal to the contrary, resolved to swim out to the
distressed ship. After a fierce conflict with the angry waves he gained
the vessel, fixed the rocket appliance, saw the crew safely conveyed
ashore, and was himself the last to take his place in the cradle. The
Duke of Edinburgh having recommended him for the Albert Medal of the
First Class, her Majesty presented it in person on the 22nd of May.
The interesting ceremony took place at Ferry Hill Junction, where
a platform had been erected for the occasion along the side of the
line. The Queen and Princess Beatrice were greeted with the heartiest
cheers as they left the saloon. Captain Best, R.N., Commander of the
coastguard division to which the hero of the day belonged, having
introduced him to her Majesty, the Queen attached the medal to Oatley’s
breast, and expressed the pleasure it afforded her to decorate him for
his gallant conduct. She then resumed her seat in the train, and her
journey was continued. The Court returned to Windsor on the 23rd of
June.
On the 13th of July a General Order was issued by the Duke of
Cambridge, by command of the Queen, conveying her congratulations to
the Volunteers on the completion of the twenty-first year of their
existence, and expressing her regret that she was unable to hold a
review of the citizen soldiers in Windsor Great Park. On the afternoon
of the following day her Majesty reviewed 11,000 regular troops in
Windsor Great Park. This was a brilliant affair, the 5th and 7th
Dragoon Guards winding up the display with a most dashing charge. On
the 19th of July the Queen and the Princess Beatrice left Windsor and
took up their quarters at Osborne where, on the 28th, her Majesty
received a party of eight officers and men of the 24th Regiment, who
brought with them the colours of that corps, which had been rescued
from the hands of the Zulus by two ensigns at the cost of their lives.
Her Majesty inspected the colours, and spoke with brief and simple
eloquence of the bravery and loyalty of the regiment, touching with
manifest emotion on the death of the ensigns who had sacrificed their
lives for their standards. Curiously enough, Indian telegrams published
about this time in the newspapers showed that at the battle of Maiwand
the majority of the officers of the 66th Regiment were killed in the
vain attempt to defend their colours; in fact, the regiment lost 400
out of its strength of 500 in this action. The attention of military
men was thus drawn to the practice of carrying colours into action,
and it was argued that it was one more honoured in the breach than the
observance. History hardly records a case where a regiment has been
rallied on its colours. On the other hand, a hundred fights besides
Isandhlwana and Maiwand testify that many valuable lives have been lost
in defending them. Nor are colours necessary as incentives to bravery,
for the Rifle regiments (whose record is one of unsullied glory) never
carried any colours, though they fought fully as well as the regiments
that encumbered themselves with flaunting banners.[166] On the 21st
of August the Queen crossed over to Portsmouth, and inspected the 1st
battalion of the Rifle Brigade previous to its departure for India. The
regiments were not drawn up in line in spick and span order, but were
visited by her Majesty as they sat at mess in undress uniform on board
the troopship, and, as she made a minute inspection of their quarters,
the novelty of the scene apparently interested and amused her very
much. The exceptional honour thus conferred on the Riflemen was due to
the close connection of the corps with the Royal Family.[167]
On the 26th of August the Court went to Balmoral, from whence, just
before Parliament was prorogued, she addressed to the Ministry a strong
Memorandum drawing attention to the frequency with which railway
accidents were occurring, and urging that steps should be taken to
provide travellers with better security for safety. In October she held
many anxious consultations with Lord Granville and Lord Hartington
on the state of Ireland, where the increase in outrages, such as the
savage murders of Mr. Boyd and Lord Mountmorres[168] gave her great
pain. The result was that Lord Hartington, when he arrived in London
from Balmoral on the 11th of October, was immediately visited by Mr.
Gladstone and Lord Granville, and in political circles it was soon
rumoured that the Irish Government was about to prosecute the leaders
of the Irish Land League. On the 10th of October the Queen and Princess
Beatrice went to spend a few days amidst the snowdrifts of the Glassalt
Sheil. The Court returned to Windsor on the 17th of December, to find
the world--for a time at least--talking of something else besides Irish
outrages.
Lord Beaconsfield had just published his last brilliant and audacious
political novel, “Endymion,” in what one of its characters describes as
“the Corinthian style, in which the Mænad of Mr. Burke was habited in
the last mode of Almack’s.” The town was in raptures over a burlesque
of Society, which blended together into amusing personalities such
opposite characters as Cardinal Wiseman and Cardinal Manning; Lord
Palmerston and Sidney Herbert; Poole the tailor, and Hudson the
railway king; which made Prince Bismarck tilt with Napoleon III. at
the Eglinton Tournament; which idealised the author as Endymion, Lady
Beaconsfield as Imogen, and Napoleon III. as Prince Florestan; which
travestied Lady Palmerston as Zenobia, caricatured Thackeray cleverly
but spitefully as Mr. St. Barbe, and George Smythe cleverly but not
spitefully as Waldershare.
[Illustration: BALLATER.]
The year closed with a more serious event in the world of literature,
the death (on the 22nd of December) of George Eliot, whose novels were
ever a perennial source of pure enjoyment to the Queen. George Eliot
was, at her death, the first of living novelists, and the womanhood of
England in the Victorian period produced no genius that in culture,
strength, tenderness, spiritual insight, and humour, could be compared
with hers. The sombre fatalism of the Greek tragedians overshadows her
“Mill on the Floss.” The humour of Shakespeare ripples through the
taproom scenes in “Silas Marner.” In “Romola,” were it not overweighted
with psychological analysis, she would have defeated Scott in the
glowing field of historical romance, and did defeat the author of
“Esmond” in an arena in which he was supposed to be peerless among
his contemporaries. In “Adam Bede,” which has probably been read more
widely than any other story of our time by the English-speaking race,
she revealed all the grace, sweetness, delicacy of feeling, nobility
of intellect, and purity of heart, that formed her fascinating and
sympathetic personality.