THE BATTLE OF THE UNION.
Mr. Chamberlain’s Doctrine of “Ransom”--The Midlothian
Programme--Lord Randolph Churchill’s Appeal to the Whigs--Bidding
for the Parnellite Vote--Resignation of Lord Carnarvon--The General
Election--“Three Acres and a Cow”--Defeat of Lord Salisbury--The
Liberal Cabinet--Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule Scheme--Ulster threatens
Civil War--Secession of the Liberal “Unionists”--Defeat of Mr.
Gladstone--Lord Salisbury again in Office--Mr. Parnell’s Relief
Bill Rejected--The “Plan of Campaign”--Resignation of Lord Randolph
Churchill--Mr. Goschen becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer--Riots
in the West End of London--The Indian and Colonial Exhibition--The
Imperial Institute--The Queen’s Visit to Liverpool--The Holloway
College for Women--A Busy Season for her Majesty--The International
Exhibition at Edinburgh--The Prince and Princess Komatsu of Japan.
The closing months of 1885 were devoted to preparations for the
General Election. Mr. Chamberlain’s speeches developed his doctrine
of “ransom” with a vigour of language and directness of purpose that
terrified the Whigs. At Bradford he demanded Disestablishment, and thus
concentrated the malice of the Church on the whole Liberal Party. Mr.
Gladstone issued a moderate manifesto to his constituents, known as
the “Midlothian Programme,” in which he attempted to neutralise Mr.
Chamberlain’s “unauthorised programme.” The reform of Parliamentary
procedure, and Local Government, the reform of the Registration
Laws, and of land transfer were the famous “four points” on which he
dwelt. As for Mr. Chamberlain’s suggestions for disestablishment, for
education, graduated Income Tax, and the abolition of the House of
Lords, he put them aside, refusing to peer “into the dim and distant
courses of the future.” The Tory leaders professed themselves equally
willing to reform Procedure, the Land Laws, and Local Government,
and attacked the Whigs for their alliance with the Birmingham School
of Radicals. Lord Randolph Churchill, in fact, appealed to the Whigs
to coalesce with the Tories in resisting what Lord Hartington called
“measures of a Socialistic tendency.” Both parties in the State made
high bids for the Irish Vote. Mr. Chamberlain offered to Mr. Parnell
a scheme of Home Rule, under which Ireland would be governed by Four
Provincial Parliaments--in fact, he furbished up an old idea which the
venerable Earl Russell had shed from his mind when it was in the last
stage of decay. The Tories, through Lord Carnarvon, offered Mr. Parnell
some form of Home Rule under which Ireland was to have a Legislature
of her own with the right to levy Protective Duties on imported
goods.[233] Though Lord
[Illustration: OPENING OF PARLIAMENT IN 1880: THE ROYAL PROCESSION IN
WESTMINSTER PALACE ON THE WAY, TO THE HOUSE OF PEERS.]
Salisbury’s Newport address was ambiguous in its references to Home
Rule, it rather gave colour to the prevalent belief that if the Tories
could win a majority by the Irish vote, they would hold power by giving
Ireland Home Rule. At the same time, it is but right to say that Lord
Salisbury and his colleagues never appear to have committed the Cabinet
to Lord Carnarvon’s bargain with Mr. Parnell. Indeed, they even seem
to have told Lord Carnarvon that, personally, they disapproved of his
Irish policy. They, however, still retained his services as a Cabinet
Minister, though Lord Salisbury had discovered that he was a Home Ruler.
Mr. Parnell issued a manifesto fiercely attacking the Liberal Party,
and ordering all Irishmen to give their votes to the Government. The
Liberals, on the other hand, appealed to the people for such a majority
as would enable Mr. Gladstone to defy Mr. Parnell. The elections began
on the 24th of November. They showed that in the boroughs the Liberal
Party was shattered, though it had, through Mr. Chamberlain’s doctrine
of ransom, won in the counties all along the line.[234] The new House
of Commons it was found would contain 333 Liberals, 251 Tories, and 86
Parnellites, not one Liberal having been returned by Ireland. In the
circumstances it was hopeless for the Ministry to attempt a settlement
of the Irish Question on Lord Carnarvon’s lines.[235] They had, even
with the Irish vote, only a majority of four. But then, if they dared
to make concessions to Mr. Parnell, this majority of four would
inevitably be converted, by the secession of the Ulster Tories, into a
minority of eight. The Liberal Leaders, on the other hand, were in an
equally difficult predicament. They, too, could not hope to govern the
country save by the Irish vote. It was quite possible, moreover, for
the Government, by conceding Home Rule, to detach from the Liberals a
sufficient number of Radicals to more than counterbalance the Ulster
secession. In these circumstances Mr. Gladstone towards the end of the
year let it be known indirectly that he was in favour of giving Ireland
Home Rule.
Ere Parliament opened on the 12th of January, 1886, the resignation of
Lord Carnarvon indicated that Ministers had dissolved the connection
between the Tory Party and the Parnellites. The House of Commons
elected Mr. Peel as its Speaker, and when Mr. Bradlaugh appeared he
took the Oath in the ordinary manner. The Queen’s Speech was read on
the 21st of January by her Majesty in person, but its references to
Ireland were vague, though they foreshadowed the introduction of a
Coercion Bill. In the preliminary skirmishes Mr. Gladstone threw out
overtures to the Irish Party which Mr. Parnell and Mr. Sexton hailed
with effusive delight. The Government, on the other hand, announced
the introduction of a Coercion Bill, which would also suppress the
National League. The Liberals and Parnellites now promptly united to
support an Amendment moved by Mr. Jesse Collings, which censured the
Ministry for refusing to bring in a Labourers’ Allotments Bill, and
the Coalition defeated the Government by a vote of 329 to 258. The
opposition of Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen to the Amendment showed
that the Whigs at least were afraid of Mr. Gladstone’s return to
office, after his vague and ambiguous promises of concessions to the
Home Rulers. Lord Salisbury resigned, and when Mr. Gladstone formed
his Ministry it was seen that many of his old colleagues, such as Lord
Hartington, Mr. Goschen, Mr. Forster, Lord Selborne, Lord Northbrook,
the Duke of Argyll, Lord Cowper, and Sir Henry James, had refused to
join him. The appointment of Lord Aberdeen as Irish Viceroy was not
very significant. But that Mr. John Morley, the most pronounced of
all the English advocates of Home Rule, should have been appointed as
Chief Secretary for Ireland meant much. Lord Rosebery was made Foreign
Secretary, and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman Secretary at War. Both were known
to be Home Rulers. Lord Spencer, disgusted at his betrayal by the Tory
Party, had also become a convert to Home Rule principles, and was
appointed President of the Council. Oddly enough Mr. Chamberlain and
Mr. Trevelyan, who were both pledged against Home Rule, had joined the
Ministry. But they had been induced to do so on the assurance that, in
the meantime, the policy of the Cabinet would be merely to examine and
inquire into the Home Rule question.
During the spring nothing was done in the matter. The House of Commons
refused to press Ministers upon their Irish policy, evidently deeming
it reasonable that Mr. Gladstone should have time to work it out. Lord
Hartington and the Whigs, however, adopted an attitude of independence
which showed that Mr. Gladstone had failed to heal the divisions in the
Liberal Party. Hence, when it was announced that Mr. Chamberlain and
Mr. Trevelyan, on being informed of Mr. Gladstone’s proposals for the
reform of the Irish Government, had resigned office, it was evident
that the fate of the Ministry was sealed.
On the 8th of April Mr. Gladstone expounded the scheme, which set up in
Ireland an Executive Government, responsible to an Irish Legislature,
capable of dealing with all matters save the Crown, the Army and Navy,
Foreign and Colonial Policy, Trade, Navigation, Currency, Imperial
taxation, and the endowment of churches. The Lord-Lieutenant, on
the advice of his Ministers, was to have a power of veto. The Irish
Legislative Body was to consist of two Orders, voting apart, the first
to comprise representative peers and members elected under a £25
property qualification, and the second members chosen by household
suffrage. In the event of collision between the two Orders, the measure
in dispute was to be held in suspense for three years, or until a
dissolution. The Irish contribution to the Imperial Revenue was fixed
at £3,242,000. On the 13th of April Mr. Gladstone introduced a Land
Bill as a complementary measure to his Home Rule Bill. He proposed
to give every Irish landlord the option of selling his land to an
authority appointed by the Irish Government, who would sell it to
the tenants, the purchase-money being advanced through the Imperial
Exchequer by an issue of Consols. These advances the tenant was to
repay in instalments spread over forty-nine years, and twenty years’
purchase was taken as the basis of the price. The amount to be advanced
at first under the Bill was to be £50,000,000, but in the original
draft it was nearly £300,000,000. The repayments were to be secured on
the Irish Revenue, and paid to a British Receiver-General in Ireland.
The opponents of the whole scheme contended that it gave no effective
guarantee for Imperial unity, that it put the loyal minority entirely
in the power of the disloyal majority in Ireland, that it multiplied
the risks of collision between Ireland and the Imperial Government,
that, in point of fact, it was virtually a Bill to repeal the Union.
Mr. Gladstone’s chief argument in favour of the scheme was that the
English democracy could no longer be trusted to hold Ireland down by
repressive legislation, and that Home Rule was the only alternative to
Coercion. Moreover, as Coercion bred Irish disloyalty, it weakened the
Imperial power of England in the world. Though the Orangemen of Ulster
plainly declared that they would plunge into civil war rather than
submit to a Home Rule Government in Ireland, Mr. Parnell accepted the
Bill in principle as an adequate concession of the Nationalist claims.
The weak points in the scheme were soon detected. One of these was
the exclusion of the Irish Members from the House of Commons--the
only proposal of Mr. Gladstone’s which had been hailed with applause
from both sides of the House when he expounded his Bill. The absence
of the Irish Members from the House of Commons was taken as a visible
sign, not only that the Parliamentary Union between Ireland and the
United Kingdom was dissolved, but that the control and authority of
the Imperial Parliament over Ireland was impaired. The Purchase scheme
alarmed the taxpayers, who objected to pledge the credit of England in
order to buy the Irish landlords out of Ireland. It is now known that,
if Mr. Gladstone had made concessions by promising to reconsider the
question of retaining the Irish Members at Westminster, and to remodel
the Bill accordingly, the Second Reading would have been carried. A
meeting of Liberals was indeed held at the Foreign Office to hear what
concessions Mr. Gladstone would make. Subsequently, in explaining his
speech at this meeting to the House of Commons, his phraseology seemed
to the wavering Liberals so illusory that they refused to support
him. Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain accordingly organised their
followers (about fifty in number) into a separate Parliamentary party,
describing themselves as Liberal Unionists, and at their first meeting
a letter was read from Mr. Bright casting in his lot with theirs. They
bound themselves to vote against the Second Reading of Mr. Gladstone’s
Bills.
[Illustration: LORD TENNYSON.
(_From a Photograph by H. H. H. Cameron, Mortimer Street, W._)]
On the 7th of June the Home Rule Bill was rejected by a majority of
341 against 311. Mr. Gladstone obtained from the Queen permission
to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the country. The Ministerial
candidates, at the General Election which followed, relied mainly upon
the contention that Home Rule was the only alternative to Coercion, and
the Tories and Liberal Unionists, on the other hand, pledged themselves
to govern Ireland without Coercion, and still retain the Parliamentary
Union unbroken. The Liberal Unionists and the Tories formed an alliance
for electoral purposes similar to that which Lord Malmesbury, in 1857,
had vainly attempted to cement between the Peelites and the Derbyites.
The Irish vote failed to balance the votes of the Liberal Unionists,
and when the new House of Commons was elected it was found to consist
of 316 Tories, 76 Liberal Unionists, 192 Liberal Home Rulers, and
86 Parnellites. Mr. Gladstone resigned, and Lord Salisbury formed a
Ministry, having unsuccessfully endeavoured to persuade Lord Hartington
and the Liberal Unionist leaders to join a Coalition Cabinet. The
services rendered by Lord Randolph Churchill in rousing the fanaticism
of Ulster were rewarded with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and
the leadership of the House of Commons. Lord Iddesleigh became Foreign
Secretary; Mr. Matthews, Q.C., who had carried one of the seats in
Birmingham, became Home Secretary; Sir M. Hicks-Beach was deposed
from the leadership of the Commons, and relegated to his old post of
Chief Secretary for Ireland. As soon as Lord Salisbury assumed office
he found that a fresh agrarian crisis was menacing Ireland. The Irish
farmers were demanding a revision even of the fixed judicial rents
in terms of the recent fall in prices. There seemed no end to the
difficulty, and, in a pessimist mood, Lord Salisbury, at the opening of
the Session, declared that he was now in favour of getting rid of the
dual-ownership of land in Ireland. In fact, he accepted the principle
of a great Land-Purchase scheme, but he also broached the theory that,
if judicial rents were cut down, the State should recoup the landlords
for their losses.
After the debates on the Address were over Mr. Parnell brought in a
Relief Bill, allowing tenants who deposited half their rent in Court
to claim from the Court a revision of their rents. The Bill was
rejected by the combined vote of the Tories and Liberal Unionists.
Mr. Dillon now advised the Irish tenants to refuse to pay more rent
than they could afford. His suggestion was that they should combine on
each estate, offer the landlord a fair rent, and if this was refused,
deposit it in the hands of trustees, and use it to resist eviction.
This was known as “The Plan of Campaign” against rack-renters, and it
was widely adopted all over Ireland. Sir M. Hicks-Beach and Sir Redvers
Buller, who had been sent to organise the police in Kerry, apparently
discovered that there was much truth in Mr. Parnell’s contention,
that the fall in prices had made judicial rents impossible. The Irish
Government, at all events, now put pressure on rack-renting landlords,
in order to prevent them from demanding full rents and from evicting
if they were not paid. But Ministers declined to legislate for Ireland
till the following Session, though they appointed Commissions to amass
materials for legislation. Parliament was prorogued on the 25th of
September.
During the autumn the schism between the Liberal Unionists and the
Liberals widened. At Leeds the Liberals pledged themselves anew to
adhere to Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule policy. On the 7th of December Lord
Hartington’s followers held a Conference in London, at which further
arrangements were made for completing their organisation as a distinct
Party pledged to maintain the Union. As the year closed various rumours
of dissensions in the Cabinet were promulgated. There had been a good
deal of agitation against the wasteful extravagance and inefficiency of
the spending departments of the State, and Lord Randolph Churchill was
called on by public opinion to redeem the pledges in favour of economy
which he gave at Blackpool on the 24th of January, 1884. In attempting
to do this he found himself thwarted by his colleagues, and, to the
astonishment of his Party, he resigned office. He was succeeded by Mr.
Goschen, who entered the Cabinet, with Lord Hartington’s sanction, as
a Liberal Unionist, thereby illustrating afresh the closeness of the
coalition between the Dissentient Liberals and the Tories.
During the year there was some agitation raised as to the sad condition
of the unemployed in London. The Tories had taken advantage of this to
revive the Protectionist Movement under pretence of advocating Fair
Trade at meetings held in Trafalgar Square. On the 8th of February,
however, the Socialists followed suit, and organised a demonstration
in favour of their panacea for poverty. The police arrangements were
somewhat defective. A crowd of roughs and thieves who hovered round the
fringe of the mob evaded the constabulary, rushed along Pall Mall and
Piccadilly smashing the windows of the clubs and sacking the principal
jewellers’ shops. The agitation proceeded, and a counter demonstration
to the Lord Mayor’s Show on the 9th of November was even planned. It
was, however, prohibited by the police.
As the celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee was now within measurable
distance, already there were great manifestations of popular feeling in
favour of Imperial Unity. In this year the Imperial Federation League
was founded for the purpose of drawing closer the bonds between the
Colonies and the Mother Country. The Indian and Colonial Exhibition at
South Kensington was organised by the Prince of Wales on a scale of
sumptuous splendour which attracted visitors to London from all parts
of the globe. It was opened with great pomp and ceremony by the Queen
in person on the 4th of May, in the presence of the more prominent
members of the Royal Family, the great dignitaries in Church and State,
and the representatives of India and the Colonies. This amazing display
of the vast resources of the Empire soon degenerated into an evening
lounge. But it brought together a vast number of able men from every
quarter of the world interested in the problem of Imperial Federation,
and the Prince of Wales dexterously seized the opportunity thus
created for him to establish a centre and rallying-point for British
Imperialism. He started the movement that ended in the foundation of
the Imperial Institute. The Queen visited the Exhibition several times,
paying special attention to the Indian Court, and conversing graciously
with the Indian workmen.
On the 11th of May her Majesty visited Liverpool to open the
International Exhibition in that city. On the 13th she visited the
Seamen’s Orphanage, and afterwards sailed down the Mersey, contrasting
the scene with that on which she gazed when, in 1851, she made a
similar excursion with the Prince Consort. Then the Queen was the
guest of Lord Sefton; on this occasion she was the guest of the city
of Liverpool, the Municipality having fitted up Newsham House for her
accommodation. On the 15th she returned to Windsor, the effect of her
visit having been to vastly increase her popularity in the North of
England. On the 26th of May the Court proceeded to Balmoral. During
the absence of the Court in Scotland the Prince and Princess of Wales
stimulated the gaiety of the London Season. It was remarkable for the
prevalence of Sunday re-unions, the patronage of which by the Heir
Apparent soon made them fashionable even among serious Church-going
people. On the 30th of June the Queen opened the Royal Holloway College
for Women at Egham, an institution for the higher education of women
founded by the vendor of the famous ointment and pills. As women had
been among the chief buyers both of the ointment and the pills, there
was a touch of irony in Mr. Holloway’s bequest that recalled the legacy
left by Swift to found a madhouse for the use of the Irish people.
On the 2nd of July her Majesty reviewed 10,000 troops at Aldershot,
and on the 5th entertained a large number of the Indian and Colonial
visitors at Windsor. She attended the brilliant garden-party given by
the Prince and Princess of Wales at Marlborough House on the 10th; and
on the 20th, accompanied by the Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of
Battenberg, left Windsor for Osborne, where she was soon absorbed in
the business attendant on a change of Ministry. On the 17th of August
her Majesty left Osborne for Edinburgh, where, on the 18th, she visited
the International Exhibition. On the 20th the Queen went to Balmoral,
where she remained till the 4th of November. On the 5th she visited the
Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch at Dalkeith Palace, and inspected the
Hospital for Incurables at Edinburgh, returning to Windsor on the 6th.
On the 22nd her Majesty received at Windsor, with much ceremony, their
Imperial Highnesses the Prince and Princess Komatsu of Japan, and on
the 29th the Court removed to Osborne.
[Illustration: OPENING OF THE INDIAN AND COLONIAL EXHIBITION: THE
QUEEN’S TOUR.]