THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).
The Quietness of Europe--Debate on Poland--The English Prisoners
in Abyssinia--Mr. Newdegate and the Encyclical--Visit of the
French Fleet--Conclusion of the American War--Sherman's victorious
March--Sheridan's Campaign--Lee's last Efforts--Evacuation
of Richmond and Petersburg--Lee's Retreat--The Surrender at
Appomattox--Grant's General Order--The Death of Lincoln--Inflated
Prosperity of India--The Canadian Defences--The Maori War
continues--Mr Cardwell's Policy--The Jamaica Rebellion--Grievances
of the Blacks--The Trespass Laws--Governor Eyre--The First
Riots--Excesses of the Negroes--Their Extent exaggerated--The
Rebellion spreads--Governor Eyre proclaims Martial Law--"The
Suppression"--Anderson the Informer--Colonel Hobbs--The
Maroons--Elkington's Letter--Gordon Ramsay--Some typical Trials--G.
W. Gordon--The Court-Martial--The Evidence produced--Gordon is
hanged--The total of Deaths--Excitement in England--The Jamaica
Committee--Eyre committed for Trial--The Chief Justice's Charge--The
Bill thrown out--Recovery of Jamaica--Reform again--It becomes a
Government Measure--The Bill of '66--Mr. Gladstone's Speech--Mr.
Lowe and Mr. Horsman--"The Cave"--The Easter Recess--The second
Reading--Lord Grosvenor's Amendment--A brilliant Debate--Mr.
Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone--A Majority of Five--The Government
perseveres--The Redistribution Bill--Its Details--Mr. Bouverie's
Amendment--It is accepted--Captain Hayter's Amendment--Mr.
Disraeli's Strategy--Lord Stanley's Attack--Mr. Walpole's
Amendment--Amendments of Mr. Hunt and Lord Dunkellin--Gross
Yearly Rental and Rateable Value--The Debate on the Dunkellin
Proposal--Defeat of the Government--Their Resignation--Mr.
Gladstone's Statement--Earl Russell and the Queen--Lord Derby's
Conservative Ministry--The Refusals--Mr. Disraeli's Election
Speech--Peace in Parliament--Indian Finance--Prohibition of the
Hyde Park Meeting--The Procession marches--Destruction of the
Railings--Mr. Walpole weeps--Discussion on his Conduct--The Queen's
Speech and the Rinderpest.
In European history the year 1865 will always be looked upon as an
interregnum, a breathing time, between the two eventful years that
preceded and followed it. It was the interval between two wars; and its
history is the history of passions that smouldered and of intrigues that
worked in secret. The underground records of diplomacy have much to tell
of it; but as for events, there are none. Nor, so far as England is
concerned, is there very much to record under the head of foreign policy.
The dullness of such foreign debates as Parliament saw in this year
contrasts sharply with the keen excitement of the debates of 1864, when
Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone flung in each other's face their opposing
views of what constitutes the honour of England. Schleswig and Holstein
were irrevocably gone now; rightly or wrongly we had stood by and seen
them taken; and it was of no use to protest after the event, or to debate
about our duty. On the other hand, the quarrel about the division of the
spoil had not yet broken out; so we have few despatches from Lord Russell
and few scoldings by the _Times_. The only debate on European affairs
that need be chronicled was one on a motion brought forward by Mr. Pope
Hennessy on the treatment of Poland by Russia. The terms of the motion
referred to Russia's palpable violation of the Treaty of 1815 and entered
a protest against it. But Lord Palmerston, and the good sense of the House
with him, refused to entertain the resolution; for such a resolution means
less than nothing unless it means war if its request is not complied with.
Neither Mr. Pope Hennessy nor any one else thought seriously of a war with
Russia. In this matter of Poland, in this year at least, we escaped the
blunder which we had committed so often and so ludicrously in 1864; as we
did not mean to enforce our opinion, we kept it to ourselves.
It was in this year that the public began to hear stirring accounts of the
British prisoners in Abyssinia, who were, a short time afterwards, to be
raised to a position of such national importance. The full story of their
captivity is perhaps better deferred till the time comes for treating of
the Abyssinian War, set on foot to rescue them; but the points at issue
may shortly be recorded here, as they were told by Lord Chelmsford in the
House of Lords during this Session. In July, 1862, Captain Cameron had
been sent to Abyssinia as consul, with flattering messages and presents
to King Theodore, a half-savage chieftain professing a kind of spurious
Christianity. He was well received by the King and treated with honour;
especially when, on the breaking out of a war between Egypt and Abyssinia,
he attempted to mediate in favour of King Theodore. But this mediation
was ill received by the Egyptian authorities and Consul Cameron was
induced to desist. This made the King very angry; especially as he had
received no answer to an autograph letter that he had written to Queen
Victoria on Captain Cameron's arrival in July. With the fickleness of
a savage, he turned round upon the consul and began to treat him with
great indignity; and matters were complicated by the action of certain
missionaries, Mr. Stern and some others, whom the King and his grandees
considered to have been acting against the interests of Abyssinia. One of
Mr. Stern's interpreters was beaten to death; he himself was also beaten
very severely; and then first he and the other missionaries and afterwards
Consul Cameron himself were imprisoned and loaded with chains. So they
continued for a long time: the British Foreign Office found itself in the
difficult position of having either to leave British subjects to take
their chance, or run the risk of rousing to fury an African chieftain
renowned for his fierce temper, and of arming him against the lives of
the unhappy captives. Matters had been in this position about eighteen
months, when Lord Chelmsford in the House of Lords, and Sir Hugh Cairns
in the Commons--both great Opposition lawyers--questioned the Government
very severely about the whole circumstances of the case. Lord Russell and
Mr. Layard both made the same defence of the Foreign Office--that it could
literally do nothing without sending the captives to certain death. It is
well known that the event proved the Foreign Office wrong. But we shall
give at a later stage an account of the war of release undertaken by Mr.
Disraeli's Government; and to that chapter we must defer the rest of the
romantic story.
There was considerable excitement abroad at the opening of this year,
especially among the clergy, concerning the Pope and the Roman Question.
It will be remembered that in September, 1864, there had been a Convention
between France and Italy, under which Italy guaranteed the undisturbed
possession of the Pontifical Dominions to the Pope, while France on the
other hand engaged to withdraw her troops from Rome. M. Thiers spoke out
boldly on the subject of this convention; he saw in it the beginning of
the end, and professed little faith in the guarantees of Italy. The object
of the French Government was, he maintained, to appear to Italy willing to
help her to the possession of Rome, while persuading all the rest of the
world to the contrary. The Ultramontanes therefore were distrustful and
alarmed, and--when the Encyclical Letter arrived in France, and a circular
was issued by the Minister of Justice, forbidding the clergy to distribute
the letter among their flocks, or to read in public the first half of it,
on the plea that it contained "propositions contrary to the principles on
which is founded the Constitution of the Empire,"--several of the more
prominent Anti-Gallican bishops broke out into warm remonstrance. The
fame of the Encyclical Letter next reached England and created some stir
among the ultra-Protestant party. Mr. Newdegate, speaking in the House
of Commons on the Roman Catholic Oaths Bill, said that, in his opinion,
that was a singularly inopportune moment to propose any change in the test
imposed upon Roman Catholic members, seeing that the French Government
were just then occupied in grave discussions on the best means of dealing
with the latest Papal aggression in the shape of the Pope's Encyclical
Letter, which in the interests of order and peace could not be allowed to
pass unnoticed. How the Encyclical Letter could affect the question of the
Roman Catholic Oaths Bill, Mr. Newdegate's hearers failed to see; it was
one of that gentleman's many cries of "Wolf" in Roman Catholic matters.
The Convention between France and Italy had no doubt disappointed the
Papacy, and the Letter may be looked upon as more or less an expression of
that disappointment; but the French Government knew very well that Rome
lay too much in the power of France for any serious affront to be offered,
and after a little more diplomatic skirmishing they let the matter drop.
Towards the end of August in this year there was a pleasant interchange
of courtesies between the French and British fleets at Portsmouth. A
British squadron of six ships, five of which were ironclads, received the
French Fleet at Spithead. Eleven fine screw steamships and screw frigates,
headed by the Emperor's yacht, the _Reine Hortense_, hove in sight on
the morning of the 28th, and were greeted by our ironclads with a gay
display of flags, manned riggings, and a succession of deafening salutes.
The Admiralty yacht, _Osborne_, having on board the Duke of Somerset and
the other Lords of the Admiralty, went out to meet the _Reine Hortense_,
and accompanied her into the harbour of Portsmouth, the _Victory_, that
gallant old relic of a bygone day, saluting the yachts with nineteen guns
as they passed. No sooner were they anchored than the naval grandees on
board the _Osborne_ passed over to the _Reine Hortense_, to pay their
respects to the French Minister of Marine, M. Chasseloup-Laubat, and the
French admirals accompanying him. The usual compliments were paid, the
usual invitations given, after which the Minister of Marine, accompanied
by his staff, Chief Almoner, Monseigneur Coquereau, and a splendid show
of English vice- and rear-admirals, entered a State barge, and was landed
at the King's Stairs in the dockyard. The day was spent by the French
guests in paying visits to the different officers of the garrison and
in inspecting some new barracks and forts close to Portsmouth; while in
the evening the First Lord of the Admiralty entertained them at dinner
on board the _Duke of Wellington_. The landsmen, not to be outdone by
the sailors, illuminated Portsmouth and gave a banquet to the French
officers. On the 30th of August the same round of visits and festivities
was gone through. At a great dinner given at the Royal Naval College in
the evening, the Duke of Somerset, after expressing the pleasure which
he and his colleagues felt in being able to return the hospitalities
showered by France upon the British fleet a month previously at Brest and
Cherbourg, proposed the health of the Emperor and Empress, to which M.
Chasseloup-Laubat responded by proposing that of the Queen in a speech
marked by that French grace and ease which makes a French public dinner
so much less formidable than an English one. The French Minister had
hardly sat down, and the cheers were still ringing in answer to the toast
of "Queen Victoria," when there was a discharge of guns and rockets from
the _Victory_, and immediately the calm summer sea beyond the harbour
was alive with thousands of twinkling lights; every ship in the allied
squadron stood outlined in many-coloured fires, and hundreds of rockets,
sent up from every deck, fell in showers through the clear air of an
August evening. Again and again, just as the distant hulls were growing
dark, the fairy-like spectacle was renewed. Nor was the town behind-hand;
illuminations ran along the shore, and land and sea vied with one another.
This magical scene lasted for about half an hour, then one by one the
ships faded from sight, the sparkle on the water died out, and, peer
as it might into the darkness gathering round Spithead, the eye could
distinguish nothing but a distant group of black forms on a grey sea. The
dinner was then resumed and a few more toasts and speeches followed; but
the event of the evening was over and at an early hour the French guests
returned to their ships. For three days more festivities were kept up, and
balls, concerts, and _déjeuners_ followed each other in quick succession.
The French squadron left Portsmouth on the 2nd of September, after a visit
full of pleasure and amusement to all who took part in it.
To the great relief of England the long agony of the Southern
Confederation was now rapidly approaching its termination. Sherman's
great march had brought him and his army of 60,000 men to Savannah, the
capital of Georgia; but it did not end there. His movements were delayed
by heavy rains; but on the 1st of January, 1865, he set forth, moving his
army directly northward, as if Augusta were the point of attack. Suddenly
turning to his right, and crossing the river Savannah, he entered the
swampy fertile plains of South Carolina. Devastation marked the track of
his columns. Beauregard had not a force under his orders sufficient for
the defence of Columbia, and he therefore directed General Wade Hampton,
who was in command there, to evacuate the city. That general did so,
having first caused to be brought out into the streets and set on fire all
the large stores of cotton which the place contained, lest it should fall
into Federal hands. A portion only of Sherman's army entered the town, in
the middle of the day on the 17th of February, but before the night it was
in flames. The loss of Columbia involved the fall of Charleston, including
Fort Sumter and other defences; for since the sea was closed against them
from behind by the blockading fleet, no hope of ultimate escape remained
for the defenders, if they waited till they were hemmed in by a superior
force on the land side. From Columbia Sherman advanced on the 23rd of
February, but instead of marching to the attack of Raleigh, the capital
of North Carolina, he struck off to the right, crossed the Great Pedee
River, and passing the State boundary at Sneedsboro', again concentrated
his army at Fayetteville (March 11). General Johnston, who ought never
to have been superseded, was now re-appointed to the command of the
Confederate army opposed to Sherman. As the Federal left, under Slocum,
was advancing from Fayetteville towards Goldsboro', Johnston vigorously
attacked at Bentonville (March 20) hoping to envelop and crush it before
it could be supported; but the success of the attempt did not correspond
to his expectations. Sherman's victorious march terminated at Goldsboro',
for to that point a strong Federal force under General Schofield had
fought its way up from the coast just before his arrival.
[Illustration: GENERAL GRANT.]
The last act of the great drama was now to open. The campaign in Virginia
was commenced by Sheridan, who, at the head of a well-equipped and
most formidable force of 10,000 cavalry, moved from Winchester in the
Shenandoah valley (March 2nd) with the intention of striking Lynchburg,
the town among the ranges of the Alleghanies whence Richmond now drew its
principal supplies. Early met him at Waynesboro' and was utterly routed;
but the intelligence that he received from his scouts led Sheridan to
believe that Lynchburg was too well defended to fall to a mere cavalry
force; he changed his plan, therefore, and led his troopers round the left
and rear of Lee's army, intending to join Grant in his encampment before
Petersburg. The Confederate arrays of cavalry, which two years before had
been the terror of Pennsylvania and Washington, were now so attenuated
by death and hardships that no effectual resistance could be offered
to Sheridan, who, carrying blight and destruction in his train, burning
bridges and stores, tearing up railways and destroying canals, moved
across the enemy's country to White House on the Pamunkey river, whence he
marched to the James, and reported to Grant in front of Petersburg on the
27th of March.
Seeing that the force in his front was continually being augmented, Lee
appears to have concluded that the only course left for him was to deal
a heavy and unexpected blow at the least guarded point about the centre
of Grant's lines, which, if successful, would cut his army in two,
enforce new arrangements for concentration, and perhaps leave time for
the detachment of a portion of Lee's army to the assistance of Johnston,
sufficient, with the troops under that general's command, to meet and
defeat Sherman. The point which he selected was Fort Steadman, nearly due
east of Petersburg. Here General Gordon, with two divisions, bore down at
daybreak on the 25th of March on the Federal lines, and captured at the
first onset Fort Steadman and three adjoining batteries, turning their
guns against the retreating defenders. But an overwhelming force was soon
brought up by General Meade, which not only drove the Confederates out of
the works they had occupied, taking 2,000 prisoners, but, pursuing the
advantage, pushed back the whole of that part of the Confederate line,
thus rendering Lee's contemplated movement into North Carolina more than
ever hazardous. A still more decisive success was gained on the 1st of
April, when Sheridan, attacking Lee's right wing, under Pickett, at Five
Forks, with a force two or three times as numerous, turned its left at
the same time that he attacked in front, and, being successful in both
operations, utterly broke and routed the Confederates, 5,000 of whom
were taken prisoners. On the next day (Sunday, April 2) Grant ordered a
general advance against the defences of Petersburg. The attack was made
at daybreak, and although the exhausted Confederates stood bravely to
their arms, so great was the preponderance of numbers that they could not
prevent the Federals from wresting several redoubts from their hands, so
that Petersburg itself stood in danger of falling before the next vigorous
assault. Such was the position of affairs at 11 o'clock, when Lee, who
had just seen A. P. Hill, one of the most trusted of his lieutenants,
shot dead while directing a charge to regain a portion of the works, and
fully recognised the imminent peril to which Richmond was exposed through
the inability of the gallant army that had so long defended it to hold
its ground any longer against the overwhelming masses of the enemy, felt
it his duty to send a message of warning to the Confederate President.
The message was in nearly these words:--"My lines are broken in three
places. Richmond must be evacuated this evening." Before retiring General
Ewell set some warehouses on fire and soon a full third of the city was
destroyed. Petersburg was evacuated simultaneously with Richmond. After
desperate attempts to evade his pursuers of whom Sheridan was the most
persistent, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court-house on April
the 9th.
The capitulation of the Army of Virginia was a signal for the close of
hostilities everywhere. Sherman, on hearing of the fall of Richmond and
Petersburg, advanced from Goldsboro' against Johnston, who soon proposed
to surrender upon terms. Sherman was induced to sign a provisional
convention (April 18th), the effect of which would have been to continue
and confirm to the existing State Governments in the Confederate States
the enjoyment of legislative and executive powers. Of course, this
convention was instantly disallowed at Washington, and in signing it, even
provisionally, it is clear that Sherman exceeded his powers. Johnston
then surrendered his army (April 26th) on precisely the same terms as
those that had been granted to Lee. A general order, addressed by Grant
on the 2nd of June to the "Soldiers of the Armies of the United States,"
in thanking them for their patriotic exertions, formally announced the
termination of hostilities. The armies were everywhere disbanded as soon
as possible, the men returning to the pursuits of industry; by the 15th of
October upwards of 785,000 men had been mustered out of the service. But a
terrible crime cast a gloom over the rejoicings with which the people of
the Northern States were celebrating the conclusion of the war, namely,
the assassination of Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, Washington, by the actor,
John Wilkes Booth. The great President was shot on the 14th of April
and died on the following day. In the course of the war recruits to the
number of 2,688,523 men had been enlisted into the armies of the Union. Of
these, about 1,500,000 were effective soldiers. On the Union side, 275,000
men were either killed outright or died of their wounds, or perished by
disease; and on the Confederate side the loss of life must have been
little if at all less.
"Her Majesty rejoices at the continued tranquillity and increasing
prosperity of her Indian dominions; and she trusts that the large supply
which those territories will afford of the raw material of manufacturing
industry, together with the termination of the Civil War in the United
States of North America, will prevent the recurrence of the distress
which long prevailed among the manufacturing population of some of the
northern counties." These words, from the Queen's Speech which closed the
Session of 1865, give a true insight into the state of the most important
of the dependencies of Britain. India was, in 1865, very tranquil and
exceptionally prosperous. As the events of the next year showed, it was
even too prosperous; the successful attempt to introduce the cultivation
of cotton, and, partially at least, to make India take the place of
America as a source of cotton-supply, had led to over-speculation and
a reckless spirit of investment. It is the fault of all speculators in
exceptional times to fancy that the exceptional times will last for
ever. The Bombay merchants, with rashness, and, indeed, ignorance that
must now appear scarcely credible, presumed upon the long continuance
of the American War; they imagined an eternal blockade of Charleston
and thought that the mills of Manchester would look for ever to the
cotton-fields of Gujerat. Hence this year of which we are speaking was a
year of extraordinary prosperity in India. The prosperity, too, affected
the revenue; and Sir Charles Wood was able to present a satisfactory
Indian Budget when he made his financial statement before the House of
Commons. As usual, the statement was deferred till the end of the Session,
for Parliament had little patience for the concerns of its vast Eastern
empire; but the figures showed a surplus, and a surplus is always welcome.
The most notable point was Sir Charles Wood's statement of the money
that had been spent in public works during the six previous years. This
amounted to no less than seventy-three millions sterling; £34,500,000 on
irrigation, roads, buildings, etc., and £38,500,000 on railways. This
last figure speaks volumes; some notion of the extension of the internal
commerce of India may be derived from it.
It was natural that the termination, or the approach of the termination,
of the American War should cause some anxiety as to the views of the
United States with regard to Canada. This anxiety was not lessened by a
notification that was received early in this year from the Washington
Government to the effect that the United States intended to withdraw from
an agreement entered into with Britain in 1817, by which both Powers had
agreed not to equip naval armaments on the Canadian lakes. This intention
of the United States Government was the result of certain "raids" made
by Confederate guerillas from a base of operations in Canada, without
encouragement of course, but unfortunately without successful hindrance,
from the Canadian authorities. The two Houses of Parliament took prompt
notice of the action of the United States; and the matter was linked
on to the question of a grant for the defences of Quebec, moved in the
Commons by Lord Hartington, Secretary at War. A good deal of vigorous
language was used, not too friendly to America, not too complimentary to
Government; for many persons felt that there was a possibility of serious
complications, even of war, between the two countries, on the ground of
supposed breaches of neutrality on the part of Great Britain during the
American struggle. Events, however, have proved that Mr. Bright was right
when he said that if there came a war, it would be one not arising out
of national necessities, but out of Cabinet manœuvring; "and that," he
said, "I consider a most improbable event." The matter ended by a vote
of £50,000, part of a larger installment, being carried for the defences
of Quebec; it being understood that the Canadian Government were to
fortify Montreal out of their own revenues. But a few days afterwards Mr.
Cardwell eased the apprehension of the House by announcing the receipt
of intelligence that the Washington Government intended to withdraw its
notice for the abrogation of the agreement of 1817. In the course of a
few months the American War ended, as has just been described, and the
relations between the United Kingdom and the United States entered upon a
new phase.
With the exception of the events in Jamaica about to be related, nothing
of much importance seems to have taken place in the remaining colonies
of Great Britain during the year 1865. The Maori War, however, in New
Zealand still dragged on, and formed the subject of a debate in the House
of Commons, which called forth from Mr. Cardwell the views of Government
as to the proper policy to be pursued by Britain. Mr. Cardwell's statement
indicated that there was a disposition on the part of the home authorities
to consider whether the time had not come for taking a new departure.
He said that "the former arrangement, by which the colony could command
the services of a large force of the Queen's troops on paying a merely
nominal contribution to the expenses incurred for that force, was at
an end." It was decided, in other words--and this with the willing
acquiescence of the Governor, Sir George Grey--that the best policy for
the interests of the colony was to leave it pretty much to take care of
itself. British opinion declared strongly against a war of extermination,
in the outset of which the natives had, by the confession of the British
Governor, been in the right; and it was thought that, by teaching the
colonists that they could not always look to Britain to fight their
battles for them, a more pacific mode of dealing with the natives would be
entered upon, to the benefit both of the colonists and the Maoris.
[Illustration: MEETING OF LEE AND GRANT AT APPOMATTOX COURT-HOUSE. (_See
p._ 382.)]
It was towards the end of October in this year that the alarming news
arrived of an insurrection of the negroes in Jamaica, which was at once
seen to be the most serious event that had happened in any British colony
or dependency since the Indian Mutiny. Few, however, suspected that
the importance of the event itself would be lost in the still greater
importance of the secondary issues which it raised--the questions of
the duties of Colonial Governors, of the legality of martial law, and
so forth. These, as will appear in the sequel, were the questions to
which the Jamaica insurrection, or riot, gave rise. They were argued in
the newspapers, in Parliament, and in courts of law, with passionate
earnestness on both sides; for both those who approved of the acts done in
the suppression, and those who disapproved of them, felt that a crisis of
great magnitude had arrived, and that a proper settlement of the points at
issue was essential to the welfare of the colonies, and, through them, to
the welfare of Britain.
[Illustration: THE ATTACK ON THE COURT-HOUSE, ST. THOMAS-IN-THE-EAST.
(_See p._ 386.)]
Jamaica, as everybody knows, is the largest of the British colonies in
the West Indies, and has been in British possession since the time of
Cromwell. Commercially and socially, the island had never recovered the
collapse that followed the abolition of slavery in 1834. Thus, while
in 1830 the amount of sugar exported was 100,000 hogsheads, in 1850 it
had fallen to 40,000; while in 1809 the coffee exports were 52,500,000
lbs., in 1850 they were 5,120,000, or not quite one-tenth. This state
of things, distressing to every one, and especially to those who regard
the emancipation of the slaves as a right act, is clearly shown by a
comparison of the accounts with those of all the other West India Islands
to have been the result of some cause not operating in them. That cause
was bad government. Distress was very prevalent in 1865, especially in
the eastern part of the island; wages were extremely low; capital was
withdrawn from the country; everything pointed to such legislation and
such administration of the law as should conciliate, and even relieve,
the great and growing poverty of the labouring class. Instead of this,
new "Trespass Laws" were made, creating offences out of what the negroes
had always as their right--gathering yams, picking occasional sugar-canes
in passing by a field, and so on; and also converting into a "trespass"
the occupation of certain lands, to which the occupiers thought they had
a right rent free. Popular opinion, naturally warm enough on points like
these, was roused to great heat by agitation, especially by a letter
directed in 1865 to Mr. Cardwell, the Secretary of State for the Colonies,
by Dr. Underhill, a well-known Baptist. This letter was taken up by the
local Radical party, led by Mr. G. W. Gordon; meetings were held in many
places, and, as is natural from the character of the negro, the language
used was often not over-wise. Still there were real grievances; and it is
an undoubted fact that these grievances were met in a scandalous manner
by the Government of the island. Mr. Gordon was treated by Governor Eyre,
not as the representative of a suffering class, but as a firebrand whom
it was right to extinguish. The magisterial benches--badly constituted,
as the Royal Commission afterwards declared--were filled up by unpopular
men; the complaints of the blacks were hardly noticed; memorials sent up
to the Colonial Office through the Governor were tampered with in transit;
obnoxious laws remained unrepealed; the "piccaninny gangs," or gangs of
children for field labour, were not discouraged;--in a word, nothing was
done to remedy a very serious condition of affairs; they were left to
break out in a violent explosion--the natural result.
Whatever doubts may exist as to the antecedent events, and the state of
the island before the outbreak, the facts of the outbreak itself, and of
the measures taken in suppression or retaliation, are clear beyond all
question, and may be told on the authority of official documents, and of
the statements of witnesses before the Royal Commissioners. The early
stages of the riots have been recorded by one of the victims of the 11th
of October, Baron von Kettelholt, custos of St. Thomas-in-the-East. They
comprised the beating and illegal imprisonment of some policemen by the
mutineers, and further outrages were anticipated. His letter was dated
the 10th of October, and was received by Governor Eyre on the morning of
the 11th, and he immediately ordered Major-General O'Connor, the senior
military officer, to send off 100 men in a man-of-war to the scene of the
disturbances. Meanwhile, however, the regular attack which the custos had
dreaded had been made. The magistrates and others were in the court-house
at about three o'clock in the afternoon; the volunteers, thirty or so in
number (according to the evidence of Mr. Rutty, who was one of them), had
been drawn up for two hours or more, when a bugle was heard and a large
mob was seen approaching. They were armed with "cutlasses and bayonets
fixed on long sticks, muskets and pistols, and various kinds of weapons."
They advanced irregularly; once they halted; a bandsman went forward
extending his arms as if to make peace, the custos from the court-house
shouted "Peace," and then, when they were within a few yards of the
volunteers, there came a shower of bricks and stones. The order was given
to the volunteers, whether from their captain or the custos is uncertain,
to fire and a volley was poured in. The mob was roused to frenzy; the
volunteers retreated into the rooms under the court-house and into other
shelter, and the people fired in upon them and upon those assembled in the
court-house, through the windows. Presently the school-house was set on
fire and soon the burning spread to the court-house, in which the whites
were assembled. Mr. Georges, who was one of them, tells us that he leaped
out of a back window and got into the committee-room underneath, and that
while there he saw Mr. Walton leap out after him and run for his life, but
to no purpose. Baron Alfred von Kettelholt, son-in-law of the custos, just
escaped; but his father-in-law was killed. Mr. Georges, with three gunshot
wounds in his thigh, lay hidden in some shrubs till midnight and so
escaped. Dr. Gerrard was allowed his life, "because he was the doctor;"
but the negroes kept him among them by the expedient of taking his boots
off. Mr. Rutty, a volunteer, tried to pass for his assistant, but was
beaten almost to death, stripped to his shirt, and left to die or recover
as he might. Mr. Price, a negro, was with the custos and the magistrates,
so he was pronounced "a black man with a white heart" and was killed.
Lieutenant Hall, Captain Hitchings, Mr. Herschell, a clergyman, and many
more of the whites assembled, were killed.
Many charges of revolting barbarity were made against the rioters; but
it is only just to say that nothing more atrocious than murder has been
proved against them. For instance, in Governor Eyre's first despatch
to Mr. Cardwell he mentioned numberless rumours of horrible deeds--how
Lieutenant Hall had been pushed into a building which was set on fire,
till he was "literally roasted alive;" how the fingers of the custos were
cut off "and kept as trophies by the rebels." It was proved, however, by
Mr. Rutty, who was present, that Lieutenant Hall was shot dead in the
heat of the struggle, and the hand of the custos was mutilated, but not,
apparently, with any specially barbarous intent. He and many of the rest
were put to death with "cutlasses," that is, the knives or bill-hooks used
in dressing the sugar-cane; and cutlasses in the hands of a mob are likely
to be wildly used. These facts it is important to bear in mind; for half
the criminality of the proceedings of the soldiers afterwards springs
from the fact that they were done upon hearsay evidence, upon rumours
of barbarities which, dreadful as the original murders had been, were
enormously exaggerated. Neither during the attack on the court-house, nor
in the plunder of Amity Hall, nor elsewhere, were any women or children
injured, though, in many cases, the rioters had them in their power. This
fact, at least, happily distinguishes the deplorable Jamaica outbreak from
such carnivals of savagery as the Indian Mutiny of 1857.
During the next day or two there was undoubtedly great excitement among
the negro population throughout all the east end of Jamaica, and the white
residents were in danger. The Morant Bay rioters broke up into parties,
and dispersed in two or three directions--up Blue Mountain valley, towards
Manchioneal, towards Golden Grove, and elsewhere. In some parts they
were joined by the negroes of the neighbourhood; many excesses, almost
entirely in the way of plunder, were committed. A mob attacked Hordley
estate and wrecked the furniture and set fire, but without effect, to one
of the "trash-houses" (a house used in sugar-making); but something may
be learned of the absence of the worst kind of ferocity from the fact
that the ladies of the house were in the other trash-house and were never
looked for or discovered. The great cry was "Colour for colour," but more
energy was spent in shouting the cry than in seeking out whites to wreak
vengeance on.
These events were, of course, enough to move the white population of the
island to a high pitch of excitement and to call for prompt action from
the Government. Governor Eyre's proceedings may be told nearly in his
own words, as given in his report to Mr. Cardwell and in his evidence
afterwards before the Royal Commission. His official residence was Spanish
Town, an inland town, fourteen miles from Kingston. His private residence
was at Flamstead, fourteen miles from Kingston and twenty-three from
Spanish Town, where, according to the Opposition papers in the colony, he
spent a good deal of time rearing chickens. How Mr. Eyre wrote to General
O'Connor, requesting 100 men to be sent to Morant Bay, has been already
told. After that order had been sent, Mr. Eyre returned to his residence
at Flamstead, "to be present at a dinner-party which was to meet there the
next day." This was Thursday, the 12th, the day after the riot; and the
news came just in time to spoil the Governor's dinner-party. At half-past
five a letter came from a magistrate with the news and the Governor at
once rode off to Kingston, to concert fresh measures. It is enough to say
that 200 men were immediately despatched to Morant Bay; a detachment of
white troops was ordered to march from Newcastle to intercept the march
of the "rebels" into Blue Mountain valley; and the Governor himself took
measures for proceeding to the scene of action. Just before he started,
that is, between eight and ten on the morning of the 13th, he presided at
a council of war and, on the advice of the Attorney-General of the island,
drew up a proclamation of martial law.
The events which followed, and which had their support and authority in
this proclamation, are commonly called "the suppression." From the time
when Captain de Horsey, of the sloop _Wolverine_, wrote to Governor Eyre
that he had landed a company of soldiers at Morant Bay, and was preparing
to detach 114 of his own sailors to co-operate with them, to the time
when "Martial Law" expired, not only was all law suspended throughout
the east of the island, but all the guarantees of evidence were dispensed
with, and the life of every negro man and negro woman hung upon the will
of an angry soldiery and an excited Provost-Marshal. Hence the Morant
Bay disturbance--which, grave and shocking as it was, has been proved
beyond question to have been a local riot and not the first outbreak of a
rebellion--was seized upon without question and at once as a rebellion,
and to be punished as such. The soldiers, sailors, and marines acted in
three or four directions at once; from Morant Bay, from Port Antonio on
the north-east side, and from Newcastle towards the mountainous region
in the centre of the country. The towns were all occupied and their
inhabitants, who were as much frightened as Governor Eyre had been,
were not much injured by the soldiery; but the whole of the country
districts were scoured with troops; negroes, unarmed as well as armed,
were shot down as they ran from soldiers, or captured, tried by summary
courts-martial, convicted on the evidence of informers, or on no evidence
at all, and hanged or flogged, or flogged first and hanged afterwards. It
was enough that a man should have been unpopular with the authorities of
his district, or that he should have a bad character, or that a witness
should inform against him, or that he should have been "seen with Bogle,"
and he was forthwith hanged or flogged as a rebel. This last charge, in
fact, touches the root of the whole matter. Paul Bogle, the leader of the
attack on the court-house, was a dangerous man and a rebel. Undoubtedly
he was guilty of high treason and his life was forfeit. But by all the
evidence given before the Commission, and notably that given by William
Anderson, the informer, it appears that the only real "rebels," that
is, the only persons who intentionally and of their own free will took
up arms against the Government of the Queen, were Paul Bogle, M'Laren,
and perhaps half a dozen more. The rest were on the first day a riotous
mob, who thought that, by making a demonstration before the court-house,
they would obtain the repeal of a burdensome law and the removal of an
unpopular custos; and afterwards they were a mob afraid for their lives,
herding together for defence against the "white men," and still acting,
without power of resistance, as Paul Bogle bade them. The part played
by this William Anderson, from whose evidence that statement comes, is
typical of the nature of the "suppression." He was one of those who went
with Bogle, on Bogle "calling for five tamarind switches to make a rod,
and for guns." He ran away on the first opportunity; he was taken up by a
constable, tried by court-martial, and was offered his life on condition
that he would be a guide to the soldiers. It was Colonel Hobbs, commanding
the 6th Royals, who undertook the task of acting upon the evidence of this
Anderson, who, of course, was careful to ensure his own safety by handing
over a sufficient number of his countrymen to the colonel's justice. Nor
were the soldiers of Colonel Hobbs alone or exceptional in their method
of vengeance. The "black soldiers," that is the maroons, descendants of
the old Spanish slaves, and the enemies of the African negro population,
shot one hundred and sixty on the road to Manchioneal. One thousand houses
of the natives were burnt down by the soldiers. And how these acts were
regarded by the superior officers at Kingston, cannot be better shown than
in the words of the afterwards celebrated letter of Lieutenant-Colonel
Elkington, Deputy Adjutant-General, to Colonel Hobbs. "I send you an
order," he wrote on the 18th of October, "to push on at once to Stony Gut,
but I trust you are there already. Hole is doing splendid service with his
men all about Manchioneal, and shooting every black man who cannot account
for himself (sixty on the line of march): Nelson, at Port Antonio, hanging
like fun by court-martial." Nor was it the officers alone who had life
and death in their hands--it was the soldiers individually; above all, it
was the Inspector of Police, Gordon Ramsay. For instance, some soldiers,
accompanied by the same Dr. Morris who fired two shots with his revolver
into the body of the negro Donaldson as he was hanging, dragged out of his
cabin one Ned Bryan, tied him to a tree and forthwith shot him. Bryan and
his brother had been at Kingston all through the riots, and only landed at
Manchioneal on the 15th of October! That is one instance, literally taken
at random from a mass of evidence. To illustrate Ramsay's proceedings is
easier still. He owned to the hanging of 184, six of them females; to the
flogging of 237, eight of them females--but in this last respect he was
perhaps outdone by Captain Hole, who owned before the Commission that he
had flogged sixteen women and among them one woman twice! Those who care
to read of Ramsay's brutality, and of the nature of the "cat" frequently
used--whipcord mixed with knotted wire--had better consult the evidence of
R. Clarke, of P. Bruce, and of Ramsay himself.
But the story would only be half instructive were we to omit the record
of the quasi-judicial proceedings by which some of the barbarities were
guaranteed. Three memorable reports of trials are printed at the end of
the Commissioners' blue-book, and to them, as showing what a court-martial
may be, what a foregone conclusion, what a mockery of justice, we may
refer any curious readers. The cases are those of William Grant, George
M'Intosh, and Samuel Clarke--all of whom were sentenced to death by
court-martial. The case of M'Intosh is, perhaps, the most instructive of
the three. He was sentenced by Colonel Lewis--and General Nelson approved
the sentence--literally for no crime at all, except for having spoken at a
public meeting in the house of Mr. George William Gordon, whose friend he
was. The evidence which hanged the others was about equally valuable.
But the case that was the most outrageous, and rapidly became the most
famous of all, was that of Mr. G. W. Gordon himself. On his trial
and execution was based the greater part of the attempt to obtain
legal redress in the English courts of law; around his body, so to
speak, was fought the question of the legality of martial law, of the
responsibility of officers and colonial governors, and of the rights of
colonists. The story need not be told at great length. It is sufficient
to say that Mr. Gordon was a negro gentleman, a member of the Jamaica
Assembly, a prominent Baptist and leader of Opposition, the friend of
the poorer classes of negroes, and in high disfavour with Governor Eyre.
This gentleman was residing peacefully at Kingston at the time of the
outbreak. Governor Eyre's own words show how little he cared for legality.
"Throughout my tour in the _Wolverine_ and _Onyx_," writes the Governor
to Mr. Cardwell, "I found everywhere the most unmistakable evidence that
Mr. George William Gordon, a coloured member of the House of Assembly,
had not only been mixed up in the matter, but was himself, through his
own misrepresentation and seditious language addressed to the black
people, the chief cause and origin of the whole rebellion. Mr. Gordon was
now in Kingston, and it became necessary to decide what action should
be taken with regard to him. Having obtained a deposition on oath that
certain seditious printed notices had been sent through the post-office,
directed, in his handwriting, to the parties who have been leaders in the
rebellion, I at once called upon the custos to issue a warrant and capture
him. For some little time he managed to evade capture; but finding that,
sooner or later, it was inevitable, he proceeded to the house of General
O'Connor, and there gave himself up. I at once had him placed on board the
_Wolverine_ for safe custody and conveyance to Morant Bay."
[Illustration: STREET SCENE, KINGSTON, JAMAICA.
(_From a Photograph by J. Valentine and Son, Dundee._)]
Now, even supposing the proclamation of martial law to have been legal,
which we believe it not to have been, it expressly excluded Kingston
from the operation of martial law. What Governor Eyre did, therefore,
was to seize a political opponent, to carry him off in a ship of war
from a district under civil jurisdiction to a district under military
jurisdiction, and then to hand him over to the tender mercies of a
court-martial. The court was composed of two naval lieutenants and an
ensign lately gazetted; one of the lieutenants being the same Lieutenant
Brand who with a couple of "dingy boys" from his ship, had "had the
pleasure" (his own words) of hanging the first "rebel," and shooting him
with his own revolver as he hung; who had openly said that "nothing would
give him greater pleasure than hanging this----Gordon." Mr. Gordon was an
old man; he had been barbarously treated; he was wretchedly ill. Before
his trial he was called out by Ramsay, the Provost-Marshal, to witness the
execution of Grant, who had been a political friend of his. "Look there,"
said Ramsay; "that is your friend Grant, and you will be hanged like him."
A Mr. Joseph G. Smith, a volunteer, thus tells, in his evidence before the
Commission, how witnesses were collected against Mr. Gordon:--
"Afterwards I went into the guard-room, and he [Ramsay] was then swearing
five of the prisoners, with their hands fastened and a rope round their
necks, and he was swearing them in these words, 'You shall well and truly
state what G. W. Gordon has to do with the rebellion;' and between each
part of this a sailor came down with the whip over their shoulders."
On evidence of this kind, the evidence of men who had had the promise of
their lives if they would accuse him, Mr. Gordon was tried. As to the
taking of the evidence, we have the words of the Lord Chief Justice of
England, Sir Alexander Cockburn, in his famous charge to the grand jury
in the case of Nelson and Brand: "He could not be tried on that evidence.
No competent judge acquainted with his duties could have received that
evidence. Three-fourths--I had almost said nine-tenths--of the evidence
upon which that man was convicted and sentenced to death, was evidence
which, according to no known rules--not only of ordinary, but of military
law--according to no known rules of right or justice, could possibly have
been admitted." But even supposing it had been admitted, all that was
proved was that Mr. Gordon had written letters to, and been on friendly
terms with, some of the rioters; but none of the letters were produced
except one, where he said that "the people of Jamaica were very wretched."
He was proved to have called the Governor "a bad man." He was proved
to have had an action-at-law against the late custos von Kettelholt.
Above all, he was proved to have spoken at public meetings, and to have
dwelt on the misery of the negroes and the way in which their case was
misrepresented to the Colonial Office. For these offences--literally
for none other--he was sentenced to death. Lieutenant Brand signed his
sentence, and Brigadier Nelson approved it. "He asked to see the Reverend
Mr. Panther, Wesleyan minister," wrote Brigadier Nelson; "I considered
it inexpedient." Without the consolations of religion, condemned on
less than no evidence by an unauthorised and incompetent tribunal, Mr.
Gordon was hanged on the 23rd of October, 1865. He had been in life
the representative of the negroes of Jamaica in their cry for equal
government; in death he was their representative in their cry for justice.
"The total number of deaths caused by those engaged in the suppression
amounted to 439, and the total number of dwellings burned was 1,000....
The whole number subjected to the degrading punishment [of flogging],
during the continuance of martial law, we think could not be less
than 600." These are the words of the Report of the Royal Commission,
consisting of General Sir Henry Storks, Governor of Malta, Mr. Russell
Gurney, Recorder of London, and Mr. Maule, Recorder of Leeds, who were
sent out to Jamaica in the beginning of 1866, and who sat for fifty-one
days examining witnesses. Long before the Commission went out, however--in
fact, as soon as the news of the "suppression" arrived in England--public
opinion had been roused. Public meetings took place, and a committee--the
Jamaica Committee--was formed headed by Mr. John Stuart Mill, to see
that full investigations were made, and that legal remedies were sought
against those who had been guilty of illegal excess. Mr. Carlyle came
forward as a champion of Governor Eyre. The Jamaica Committee announced
that, "having been advised that the facts disclosed in the Report of
the Royal Commissioners afford a proper ground for an indictment for
murder to be preferred against Mr. Eyre and the other persons concerned
in the trial and execution of Mr. Gordon, and that no other mode of
vindicating the law in reference to those facts is open to them, they
have instructed their solicitors to proceed forthwith with an indictment
against Mr. Eyre." They did proceed with an indictment against Mr.
Eyre, Brigadier Nelson, and Lieutenant Brand. Mr. Eyre was domiciled
in the country--he had been recalled from Jamaica and superseded--and
the question of committing him for trial was argued before a Shropshire
bench of magistrates. The Shropshire bench of magistrates declined to
commit him. The London stipendiary magistrate, being a trained lawyer,
understood his duty differently in the case of Nelson and Brand; he
committed them for trial at the Central Criminal Court. The prosecution
failed in the end; but not before it had elicited from the Lord Chief
Justice a charge to the grand jury so elaborate, so learned, so telling,
and so clear, that it may be said to have once for all defined the scope
of "martial law," and to have once for all settled the rights and duties
of local authorities in dealing with riot or insurrection. Two points
stand out clear from the Chief Justice's charge: first, that martial law,
exercised in Great Britain or in any of her dependencies, means the law
administered by courts-martial--the law, that is to say, which is laid
down for the trial of military offenders by military courts; secondly,
that, by the Petition of Right and all the statutes and examples which
have confirmed it, civilians are in no case amenable to this law. What,
then, the Governor and the military authorities in Jamaica had the right
to do, was to use all diligence in suppressing what, for a moment--though
probably wrongly--appeared to be a formidable insurrection; and to do
this by military force. They had undoubtedly the right to put to death or
flog any rebel captured with arms in his hands; their justification in
this was, that highest law--necessity and the right of self-preservation.
They had also the right to seize any dangerous persons and hand them
over to the civil courts. But they had no right to assume a jurisdiction
over the whole actions of civilians, to hang and flog and burn on mere
charges of "complicity" or of past guilt. The trial of Mr. Gordon--all
the trials that took place in the county of Surrey in that dreadful
time--were no trials at all; they were military cruelty and race tyranny
aping the forms of law. The grand jury threw out the bill, but made a
formal presentment, "strongly recommending that martial law should be more
clearly defined by legislative enactment." Mr. Eyre and his subordinates
escaped, and in 1872, numerous suits instituted by his opponents having
failed and a considerable revulsion of feeling having taken place in
his favour, his expenses were paid by Government. It is a consolation
that the changes which followed upon her ordeal of fire were fruitful to
Jamaica. After Sir Henry Storks returned from his temporary government of
the island, a new Governor was found in a distinguished and able Indian
official, Sir John Peter Grant. Under his rule security was established
and brought a moderate measure of prosperity in its train.
During the whole of the year 1866 two great subjects occupied everybody's
mind--the war in Germany, its antecedents and its consequences, and
Parliamentary Reform at home. We may proceed at once to tell the story
of the unsuccessful attempt of Lord Russell's Government to carry the
Reform Bill, and of the serious popular agitation that followed upon their
overthrow. The cause of the defeat of the Bill of 1860 was undoubtedly
the indifferent attitude of Lord Palmerston, which represented that of
the public. In 1865 Mr. Baines brought in a Bill, which was defeated.
Soon afterwards Lord Palmerston died and the principal barrier to a
successful Bill was removed. Even before his death, in the months that
were spent in canvassing for the general election, "both among Liberal and
Tory candidates," said Mr. Bright, "the question of Reform was mentioned
in some way or other, either in their written or spoken addresses to
their constituents." But when, after the news arrived that the veteran
Prime Minister had died, Lord Russell succeeded to his place, and Mr.
Gladstone took the position of unfettered leader of the House of Commons,
it was known that Reform was to be immediately approached as a Government
measure. Many of their colleagues were averse from re-opening the question
and to overcome their scruples a mild Bill was promised.
Parliament opened amid general interest and excitement with regard to
Reform; and in March Mr. Gladstone brought in his "Bill to extend the
Right of Voting at Elections of Members of Parliament in England and
Wales." This important Bill, upon which was based so much of the Reform
Bill of 1867, was at first sight extremely moderate. In the first place,
it advanced the property qualification for the borough franchise which
Lord Russell's Bill had fixed at £6 to £7--a step which Mr. Gladstone
explained as follows: "A £6 rental, calculated upon the most careful
investigation, and after making every allowance and deduction that ought
to be made, would give 242,000 new voters, whom I should take as all
belonging to the working class. I should then arrive at a gross total
of 428,000 persons" (that is, by adding together old and new electors),
"which would, in fact, probably place the working classes in a clear
majority upon the constituency. Well, that has never been the intention
of any Bill proposed in this House. I do not think it is a proposal that
Parliament would ever adopt.... I do not think that we are called upon
by any overruling or sufficient consideration, under the circumstances,
to give over the majority of the town constituencies into the hands of
the working class. We therefore propose to take the figure next above
that which I have named--namely, a clear annual value of £7." Under the
£7 qualification it was calculated that 144,000 voters of the working
class would be admitted to the borough franchise--enough to give the
artisan class its due weight and share in elections, without swamping
the other elements of the constituency. Mr. Gladstone also proposed--by
means of the abolition of the ratepaying clauses of the Reform Act of
1832, by registration of compound householders, and by a lodger franchise
applicable to persons occupying rooms of the annual value of £10--to
further increase the number of borough voters by 60,000, giving a general
increase of 204,000. To this increase must be added the proposed number of
new county voters, "fourteen-pound tenants," 172,000 in number; and the
depositors in saving-banks, etc., 24,000 more. In all, the number of new
voters to be added by the Bill was estimated at 400,000, equally divided,
according to the belief of the framers of the Bill, between the middle
class and the artisans.
Mr. Gladstone introduced his Bill on March 12th, 1866, in a speech worthy
of the occasion. At the outset he read the passage in the Queen's Speech
which bore upon the question:--"When that information (relative to the
existing rights of voting) is complete, the attention of Parliament will
be called to the result thus obtained, with a view to such improvement
in the laws which regulate the rights of voting in the election of
members of the House of Commons as may strengthen our free institutions
and conduce to the public welfare." Words like these gave him a good
starting-point. He appealed to them and to the numerous occasions on which
the same recommendation had been given from the Throne. "By no less than
five Administrations, in no less than six Speeches of the Queen anterior
to that of the present year," had the need of Reform been suggested to
the House. Such an accumulation of authority, he went on to say, seemed
to excuse him from the necessity of arguing the abstract question of the
advisability of Reform. He took that for granted. Again, Mr. Lambert's
work had been so well and quickly done that Government found itself
ready to offer the Bill at once, without waiting a year. But--here was
the important point--partly with a view to break up the opposition to
Government's proposals, partly to prevent the Bill from becoming unwieldy
and its progress too slow, it was to consist really of two Bills. The
first was a Bill for the Extension of the Franchise; the second, to be
considered after the settlement of the first, was to be concerned with
the Redistribution of Seats. Into Mr. Gladstone's details we need not
follow him, for we have already sketched the main provisions of his Bill.
He commended it to the House, hoping that "if, unhappily, issue was to
be taken adversely upon the Bill, it would be, above all, a plain and
direct issue"--that is, whether or not there ought to be enfranchisement
downwards. In other words, Mr. Gladstone, though he had nearly ignored the
general question of the need of Parliamentary Reform, courted discussion
of that general question. He brought in his Bill, not like a Trojan horse
(he said) "approaching the walls of the sacred city, and filled with
armed men, bent upon ruin, plunder, and conflagration," but rather as
bringing recruits to the Parliamentary army--children to the Parliamentary
family. "Give to these persons," ran his peroration, "new interests in
the Constitution; new interests which, by the beneficent processes of the
law of nature and Providence, shall beget in them new attachment; for the
attachment of the people to the Throne, the institutions, and the laws
under which they live is, after all, more than gold and silver, and more
than fleets and armies; at once the strength, the glory, and the safety of
the land."
The night following the introduction of the Bill was marked by the
second of Mr. Lowe's famous Reform speeches, and the first of those
fierce attacks upon the Russell Ministry which more than anything else
contributed to bring in the Conservatives in the following year. Mr. Lowe
was then member for Calne. He had held office under Lord Palmerston as
Vice-President of the Council from 1859 to 1864, and had long been known
in the House as an accomplished man and ready debater; but probably few,
in 1866, had any idea of the real greatness of his oratorical gift, and
of the splendid displays he was to make of it before the close of the
Session. At the very outset of his speech on the 13th of March he denied
the necessity of Reform altogether. And then came the famous passage
that made Mr. Lowe the bugbear of the working classes. "Look at what a
[working-class] majority implies. I shall speak very frankly on this
subject, for--having lost my character by saying that the working man
could get the franchise for himself, which has been proved to be true,
and for saying which, he and his friends will not hate me one bit the
less--I shall say exactly what I think. Let any consider--I have had such
unhappy experiences, and many of us have--let any gentleman consider the
constituencies he has had the honour to be concerned with. If you want
venality, if you want ignorance, if you want drunkenness and facility
for being intimidated; or if, on the other hand, you want impulsive,
unreflecting, and violent people, where do you look for them in the
constituencies? Do you go to the top or to the bottom?" Lastly, Who asked
for the Bill? Not the people, not the House of Commons, but the Radical
leaders, as a salve for a theoretical and not a practical grievance!
"All I can say," concluded Mr. Lowe, "is, that if my right honourable
friend does succeed in carrying this measure through Parliament, when
the passions and interests of the day are gone by, I do not envy him his
retrospect. I covet not a single leaf of the laurels that may encircle
his brow. I do not envy him his triumph. His be the glory of carrying it;
mine of having, to the utmost of my poor ability, resisted it." The cheers
that greeted this speech--and not only the Opposition, but for a moment
the Ministerialists, were carried away by its eloquence and wit--were a
kind of omen of the difficulties that the Government were to meet with
during the progress of the measure. In this debate on the first reading,
Mr. Horsman, the Liberal member for Stroud, took up the same position of
hostility to the measure as Mr Lowe; and it was in answer to him that
Mr. Bright threw out his famous nickname for the new party. "He has
retired into what may be called his political cave of Adullam, and he has
called about him every one that was in distress, and every one that was
discontented." The name of "Adullamites" was ever afterwards given to the
group of seceding Liberals, and their position was called the "Cave."
[Illustration: JOHN STUART MILL. (_From a Photograph, by F. Hollyer, of
the Painting by G. F. Watts, R.A._)]
The Bill was brought in, and read a first time, and the House adjourned
for the Easter Holidays to think over the situation. It was evident that
a storm was coming and questions perhaps graver than that of the fate of
a Cabinet or of a measure were dependent on the issue. A great meeting
was held at Liverpool, at which Mr. Gladstone made a speech in defence
of the Bill. Mr. Lowe's Liberal constituents at Calne wrote him a strong
protest against his conduct and clearly indicated that he must not ask for
a continuance of their confidence. His answer to them was, in fact, an
answer to a perfect chorus of invective with which he was greeted by every
Liberal newspaper and in every meeting of Liberals throughout the country.
He maintained that he had but fulfilled the announcement which he had
made to them at the time of his election in 1865, when the words of his
address had been, "I attach too much importance to the blessings we
already enjoy, to risk them in pursuit of ideal perfection, or even of
theoretical improvement." And, while with perfect frankness he affirmed
his belief that "ignorant, drunken, venal, violent" people were to be
found at the bottom of the constituencies, he denied that he had meant the
words to apply to a whole class of his countrymen. But this disclaimer
availed little; the words had been spoken, and they stuck. The popular
excitement which they caused continued after the failure of the Bill
and throughout the winter of 1866, and was directed mainly against the
"renegade Liberals." Mr. Gladstone's Liverpool speech was of the most
uncompromising kind. "We do not desire," he said, "we should be the first
to resist, sudden and violent sweeping changes; but the progressive
enlargement of the popular franchise--with due regard to the state and
circumstances of the country--we do not consider liable to the application
of any of these epithets. Having produced this measure, framed in a spirit
of moderation, we hope to support it with decision.... We stake ourselves,
we stake our existence as a Government, and we also stake our political
character, on the adoption of the Bill in its main provisions. You have
a right to expect from us that we should tell you what we mean, and that
the trumpet which it is our business to blow shall give forth no uncertain
sound. Its sound has not been, and I trust will not be, uncertain. We have
passed the Rubicon, we have broken the bridge and burned the boats behind
us.... The defeat of the Bill, what would it procure? an interval, but not
an interval of repose--an interval of fever, an interval of expectation,
an interval for the working of those influences which might extend even to
the formidable dimensions of political danger."
The great debate on the second reading began on the 12th of April; and
never within living memory had a finer display of eloquence, argument,
and energy been witnessed within the walls of the House of Commons. Mr.
Gladstone had seen enough of the spirit of opposition that had been
awakened to render it necessary for him to make an elaborate speech on
moving the second reading, directed mainly against the amendment of
which notice had been given by Lord Grosvenor, the eldest son of the
Marquis of Westminster. This amendment, which was to be seconded by Lord
Stanley, was to the effect "that it was inexpedient to consider this Bill
until the House had before it the whole scheme of representation;" that
is to say, that it was inexpedient to break up the Reform legislation
into two parts, to separate the question of the franchise from the
question of redistribution. Mr. Kinglake, a supporter of Government,
moved an amendment to the same effect, though he was ready to postpone
redistribution until the second reading had been carried. This compromise
was accepted by Government. It is not necessary to go through the points
that Mr. Gladstone raised; for to do so would be to anticipate the course
of the debate, so exhaustive and voluminous was his eloquence. The
former part of the speech was of a more general kind than that which
had introduced the Bill originally; it was a sort of answer to Mr. Lowe
and to those who had denied the necessity and the demand for Reform,
and it dwelt with immense force upon the pledges given in past years by
Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Horsman, and others, now strenuous opposers of Reform
in any shape. Mr. Gladstone had previously denounced as a "deplorable
arrangement," "a gross blunder springing from that kind of cleverness
which so often outwits itself," the design of the opponents of the Bill
to place themselves under the guidance of "the representatives of two of
our noblest and most ancient houses." Indeed, it looked very much like
a combination of aristocracy against democracy, when from the Liberal
side of the House rose Lord Grosvenor to move an amendment, and from
the Conservative side rose Lord Stanley to second it. Lord Grosvenor's
speech was not specially effective, except from the family weight of the
speaker. It mainly turned upon the affront put upon the Whig families by
Government, in not having sufficiently taken them into their counsels.
Lord Stanley was more telling. Alluding to the coming general election,
he protested against the chance of allowing the extension of the suffrage
to be dealt with by one Parliament, and the redistribution of seats by
another. The Franchise Bill, if carried, would confer a great increase
of power upon the Radical element in the constituencies--an increase of
power which would lead to the return of a much more Radical Parliament
than the present, pledged by the very circumstances of its existence to
extreme measures. Was it safe to leave to its tender mercies a question
involving so many complicated interests as that of the redistribution of
seats? Mr. John Stuart Mill, in an able speech, followed Lord Stanley, and
had no difficulty in showing this to be the real grievance and bugbear of
the great families who had still so much influence over British politics,
though Lord Stanley had hardly ventured to put it into such a definite
form; but were there any real grounds for this fear of the working
classes? For it was at bottom that and nothing else. The blue book of Mr.
Lambert, said Mr. Mill, after an eloquent vindication of the rights of the
workmen as a class, had revealed the fact that but twenty-six per cent. of
the electors were of the working classes.
Mr. Mill's speech may be said to have established his parliamentary
reputation, and many of the subsequent speakers took great pains to answer
his arguments. Indeed, it was necessary to do so, if the opposition to
the Bill was to be justified, for Mr. Mill's speech had been a vigorous
attempt to show that on many important questions legislation would be
wiser and better if the working classes were more represented. Education,
sanitary reform, the diminution of pauperism, the diminution of crime--in
a word, the social side of politics--would, he maintained, be better
handled by a reformed than by an unreformed Parliament; and, if so, an
approach to democracy should rather be welcomed than feared. These were
the points chiefly dwelt upon by the Opposition speakers--by the orthodox
Conservatives like Sir Hugh Cairns, by Mr. Disraeli, by the "Cave,"
represented by Mr. Laing, Mr. Horsman, Lord Elcho, and notably Mr. Lowe.
Mr. Disraeli's summing up of the case of the Opposition was clever,
but not very telling; it was, except at the end, too vague. The end,
however, gave Mr. Gladstone what he wanted. Quoting from the late Sir
George Cornewall Lewis, and addressing himself to Mr. Gladstone's famous
assertion that the working classes were "the same flesh and blood" as the
upper classes, Mr. Disraeli said:--"Sir George Lewis would not have built
up the constituent body on the rights of man. He would not have entrusted
the destiny of the country to the judgment of a numerical majority. He
would not have counselled the Whig party to reconstruct their famous
institutions on the American model, and to profit in time by the wisdom of
the children of their loins. Sir, it is because I wish to avert from this
country such calamities and disasters that I shall vote for the amendment
of the noble lord."
When the leader of the Tory party sat down, Mr. Gladstone rose and took
for his starting-point the last words of Mr. Disraeli. "At last, sir," he
said, "we have obtained a clear declaration from an authoritative source;
and we now know that a Bill which, in a country with five millions of
adult males, proposes to add to the present limited constituency 200,000
of the middle class and 200,000 of the working class is, in the judgment
of the leader of the Tory party, a Bill to reconstruct the Constitution on
American principles." The speech which followed was, for sheer eloquence,
one of the very greatest of Mr. Gladstone's parliamentary efforts; it
began at one o'clock in the morning, and, after reviewing the whole course
of the debate, it ended at three. "You may drive us from our seats," he
ended, "you may slay, you may bury the measure that we have introduced.
But we will write upon its gravestone for an epitaph this line, with
certain confidence in its fulfilment--
'Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor!'
You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. The great social
forces which move onwards in their might and majesty, and which the tumult
of these debates does not for a moment impede or disturb, those great
social forces are against you; they work with us; they are marshalled
in our support. And the banner which we now carry in the fight, though
perhaps at some moment of the struggle it may droop over our sinking
heads, yet will float again in the eye of heaven, and will be borne by the
firm hands of the united people of the Three Kingdoms, perhaps not to an
easy, but to a certain and not distant victory."
It was three o'clock in the morning when Mr. Gladstone finished his
speech, but the crowded and excited House showed no signs of fatigue.
When the Speaker put the question, the roar of "Ayes" and "Noes" which
answered him was heard far beyond the walls of the House by the waiting
crowds outside. Amid great excitement the two camps parted into their
respective lobbies, and shortly afterwards the result of the division
was announced as follows:--For the second reading, 318; against it,
313. Majority for Government, 5. Both sides of the House cheered the
announcement of these critical numbers--the Liberals for the fact of a
majority, the Conservatives for the smallness of it. When the uproar
had somewhat abated, Mr. Gladstone stated that he would declare what
course the Government proposed to take on the Monday following, the
30th of April. In the few days which intervened there were many rumours
abroad as to the probable resignation of the Cabinet. However, when the
House re-assembled, Mr. Gladstone announced that the Government did not
consider the division on Lord Grosvenor's motion any sufficient reason
for resigning, and that they were prepared to proceed with the Bill in
the manner which the House seemed to prefer. They would now lose no time
in producing the Redistribution Scheme as well as the Scottish and Irish
Bills, and they promised that the House should have ample time to consider
the Redistribution Scheme before going on with the Franchise Bill. In
answer to some reproaches of inconsistency from the Opposition benches,
Mr. Gladstone replied that the Government had indeed pledged themselves
to stand or fall by the Bill, but as yet the Bill had not fallen--the
alteration now effected in it was, after all, a question of arrangement
only, and did not affect any vital principle of it.
On the 7th of May the Redistribution of Seats Bill was introduced. The
Bill provided, first, for the redistribution of seats, properly so called;
and secondly, for a more accurate settlement of borough boundaries
than had been accomplished by the Reform Bill of 1832. With regard to
the first question, Mr. Gladstone announced that Government had no
intention of trying to get rid of bribery by a wholesale extinction of
small boroughs. In the first place, to get rid of bribery was not the
object of the Bill; and secondly, corruption, that "leprosy of English
politics," was not confined to small boroughs, and no hard and fast line
of electoral purity could be drawn between boroughs above or beneath
the ten thousand line of population. Moreover, the question of small
boroughs had since the Reform Act assumed a very different aspect. In
1832 the extreme measure of extinction--"capital punishment," as Mr. Lowe
called it--had to be employed wholesale, since in many places throughout
England the exercise of the franchise had become a mere "mockery of the
representative system." Now, however, every member did in some way or
other represent the views, as well as the interests, of a real local
community; and the representation of the small boroughs was in so much
better a state generally that no such summary measures as those adopted
in 1832 ought now to be taken with regard to it. No borough, then, was
to be absolutely extinguished, but "the fair demands of justice and
growing population," in other words, the electoral deficiencies of the
great manufacturing towns, were to be met by the milder expedient of
arranging small boroughs in groups--a principle which had been already
successfully adopted in Scotland and Wales. These groups were to be
arranged according to geographical convenience; in some cases they were
to consist of two boroughs, in others of three, and in one case of four.
"When the population amounts to less than fifteen thousand we propose to
assign one representative, and when it exceeds that number we propose
to give it two." Mr. Gladstone then proceeded to run through the names
of the various groups proposed. There were eight pairs of boroughs: in
seven instances the group was composed of three, and in one, as we have
said, of four. That is to say, that where two or more small towns had
been accustomed to return each of them a representative, they were, in
future, to constitute a group returning one jointly. Mr. Gladstone
calculated that by these arrangements forty-nine seats would be set
free for redistribution, and having now sketched the disenfranchisement
side of the scheme, he proceeded to consider the still more important
question of enfranchisement. The franchise was to be given for the first
time to the six boroughs of Burnley, Stalybridge, Gravesend, Hartlepool,
Middlesborough, and Dewsbury. Government proposed to apportion the
remaining forty-three seats as follows:--Twenty-six additional members
were to be given to the English counties, a third member to Liverpool,
Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, one member to the University of London,
four additional members to the metropolitan constituencies of Chelsea
and the Tower Hamlets, and one to the borough of Salford. The seven
seats still remaining were to be handed over to Scotland. Ireland and
Wales, Government considered, were already adequately represented, and
they were, therefore, left out of account in this division of the spoils
of redistribution. With regard to the question of borough boundaries,
a vexed and difficult one, the Bill proposed little in the way of
actual legislation. It provided that "wherever the municipal boundary
includes any area that is not now within the parliamentary boundary, the
parliamentary boundary is to be so far enlarged as to include that area."
The Commissioners of Enclosures were to decide the boundaries of the newly
enfranchised towns, of the newly separated halves of the Tower Hamlets,
and, in cases of municipal extension--such as occurred when any outlying
suburb of a town became large enough and united enough to claim municipal
privileges--the parliamentary line was to follow whatever local line might
be adopted.
In conclusion, Mr. Gladstone stated that Government was prepared to treat
the two Bills--the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill--exactly
as the House thought best. They were willing, if the House desired it,
to make one Bill out of them, but in no circumstances would Ministers
advise a prorogation of Parliament till both questions had been disposed
of. This marked concession to the demands of the Opposition only produced
some captious remarks from Mr. Disraeli, to the effect that Government
did not know its own mind; and that, in leaving the choice of the mode of
procedure to the House, it was abdicating its functions.
[Illustration: SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS: A NARROW MAJORITY. (_See p._
395.)]
After leave was given to bring in the Bill, the Scottish and Irish Reform
Bills were introduced. The Scottish Bill provoked some discussion,
but, on the whole, the House seemed to have made up its mind to let
the Franchise question comparatively alone till the Redistribution of
Seats, which most members considered a far more personal and pressing
question, should have been settled. In the week that intervened between
the introduction and the second reading of the Redistribution Bill, two
notices were put upon the order book of the House, which gave Government
ample warning of a troublesome time coming. One was Mr. Bouverie's motion
to consolidate the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill and make
one measure of them; the other and more important one, moved by Captain
Hayter, was to the effect "that in the opinion of this House the system
of grouping proposed by Government is neither convenient nor equitable,
nor sufficiently matured to form the basis of a satisfactory measure."
Before they came on for discussion, however, the Redistribution Bill
passed the second reading without formal opposition, though Mr. Disraeli
took the opportunity of making a vigorous defence of small boroughs.
After the Whitsuntide holidays the hottest part of the contest began.
Lord Russell wrote a strong appeal to Lord Grosvenor, but without effect.
Government announced that they were prepared to fuse the two Bills, and
that they were willing to give every facility for discussion of Captain
Hayter's amendment, but the "Cave" and the Conservatives were not to be
conciliated; and Sir Rainald Knightley's motion, to add to the twofold
Bill, already unwieldy in size, provisions against bribery and corruption
at elections, both surprised and annoyed Ministers. Mr. Gladstone opposed
it warmly. As he said afterwards, "We had already an overweighted measure,
and it was impossible to find time to consider it alone," without adding
to it any fresh material for discussion. But the Opposition rallied round
the motion, and it was carried by a majority of ten against Government.
Mr. Gladstone once more gave way and announced that if Sir Rainald
Knightley could produce a matured scheme for the prevention of bribery
at the proper time and place, Government would not oppose the discussion
of it. Captain Hayter's amendment against the system of grouping was
brilliantly debated for five nights. Mr. Mill, Mr. Lowe, Sir Hugh Cairns,
Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Disraeli showed themselves at their best; and
the clever skirmishing of Mr. Lowe, and the more serious but hardly
more logical speeches of Mr. Disraeli, contrasted well with Mr. Mill's
grave sarcasms upon the "dense solid force of sheer stupidity" in the
Conservative party, and the sincere enthusiasm of Mr. Gladstone. Mr.
Disraeli, in the speech which concluded the debate, did his best to defend
his party from the charge of factious opposition; but when one considers
what a much more sweeping Bill than the one they were at present opposing,
on the ground of its Radical tendencies, was passed by him and his party
in the following year, his arguments appear hardly convincing. When he
resumed his seat, the amendment was negatived by 403 to 2, the greater
part of the Opposition having left the House to avoid voting, seeing that
Lord Grosvenor's defection from their ranks left them little or no chance
of obtaining a majority against Government.
So far, and upon questions of general principles, Government had in the
main, though with great difficulty, and at least one hair-breadth escape,
been successful; that is to say, the House as a whole, with the exception,
perhaps, of Mr. Lowe, were agreed that Reform in some shape or other was
inevitable. But the Opposition were also agreed in the determination not
to let the Russell Ministry settle the question. A successful Reform
Bill would have continued the Liberals in power, as later it kept the
Conservatives in office, and Mr. Disraeli saw his opportunity and seized
it. Reform, especially that side of it which is concerned with the
redistribution of seats, rouses the most apathetic Conservative member,
and Mr. Disraeli could therefore count upon the undivided support of his
party. But Mr. Gladstone's majority would have baffled all their efforts,
had it not been for the unexpected defection of the "Cave." The opposition
of Lord Grosvenor, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Horsman, and others to the Bill meant
victory to the Conservatives; and Mr. Disraeli would not have been Mr.
Disraeli had he not known how to use the advantage thus given him. So
that while in committee the fortunes of the Bill went wavering backwards
and forwards over the debatable ground of "rateable value," or "gross
yearly rental," all the world knew that it was in reality no question of
details, no question indeed of Reform, but a question of a Liberal or
a Conservative Ministry that was being so obstinately fought out. The
general consciousness of this gave an unusual piquancy to the discussion
of even the dullest of those details of which a Reform Bill is full. The
cleverness and determination of the opponents of the Ministry were notably
shown in a most unexpected attack upon the Bill made by Lord Stanley on
June 7th. The House in committee was engaged in debating the 4th clause
of the now consolidated Bill, relating to the county franchise, which it
was proposed to reduce to £14. Mr. Gladstone had just made an elaborate
defence of the clause against a hostile amendment moved by Mr. Walpole,
and all seemed going on as usual, when, to the amazement of the Tory side
of the House, no less than of the Liberals, Lord Stanley, the member for
Lynn, advanced quietly to the table and moved "that the portion of the
joint Bill which relates to the redistribution of seats be taken first,"
or, in other words, that the Franchise Bill should be postponed _sine
diê_. "This brief speech," says the historian of the year, "had the effect
of a _coup de théâtre_." Lord Stanley went on to give various plausible
reasons for the motion, but the House, in spite of its astonishment, was
not to be taken in.
The tendency of the motion and the animus which prompted it were very
plainly visible, and the indignant Liberal benches applauded every word of
Mr. Gladstone's speech in answer to it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
ironically complimented the Opposition upon their perfect knowledge of
the "art of ambush." At last, it seemed, they had made up their minds,
so long in uncertainty, as to what step they should take next, and this
new strategy was the result of their cogitations. Loudly cheered by his
supporters, Mr. Gladstone went on to say that Government would never
suffer the conduct of the measure to be taken out of their hands by such
a motion. They were pledged to accomplish, or at least to attempt, the
enfranchisement of the people, and to that object they would adhere so
long as they retained the support of the House. Lord Stanley's motion was
defeated by a majority of 27, a larger majority than had yet fallen to
the lot of Government since the beginning of the Reform debates, for the
strong sense of unfair treatment among the Liberals kept several waverers
loyal to the Ministry who would otherwise have voted with the Opposition.
Nor was this all. "The engineer was indeed for once hoist with his own
petard," for the feeling awakened by Lord Stanley's motion did Government
good service in the next division which they had to encounter, namely,
upon Mr. Walpole's amendment, the debate on which had been interrupted by
Lord Stanley's speech. Mr. Walpole was beaten by a majority of 14.
A far more vital question, however, was raised on June 11th by Mr. Ward
Hunt, member for Northamptonshire, and one leading to much more important
consequences. He proposed to make the basis of the county franchise, not
the "gross yearly rental" of any given property, but its "rateable value;"
while Lord Dunkellin followed suit with a similar motion with regard to
the borough franchise. The Bill as originally drawn up gave the borough
franchise "to the occupier, as owner or tenant of premises of any tenure
within the borough, of a clear yearly value of seven pounds or upwards;"
and the same expression was used in the case of the county franchise;
clear yearly value meaning the same as "gross estimated rental."
The "gross estimated rental" of a house, according to the Union Assessment
Committee Act of 1862, is defined as "the rent at which the hereditaments
might reasonably be expected to let from year to year, free from all usual
tenants' rates and taxes and tithe commutation rent-charge, if any."
But the rateable value, the yearly value, that is to say, at which the
house is assessed in the rate-books for rating purposes, is computed from
the "gross estimated rental" by making various deductions. The scale of
these deductions varies according to local needs; thus, in some places,
"rateable value" is ascertained by deducting 10 per cent. from "gross
estimated rental," in others 15 per cent., and in others as much as 35
or 36 per cent. The substitution of "rateable value" for "clear yearly
value" in clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill would considerably diminish the
number of new voters to be enfranchised by the Bill. That is to say, a £5
rating franchise would even hardly admit as many voters as the £7 rental
franchise, because the "rateable value" was always something below the
"gross estimated rental," and sometimes, as we have seen, very much below
it. Mr. Ward Hunt said frankly that the object of his amendment was to
raise the county franchise to a higher standard than if the clause passed
without amendment. He thought the £14 franchise would admit an excessive
number of votes.
Mr. Gladstone in a short, clear speech defended the basis adopted by
Government, and once more patiently explained what was meant by the terms
"rateable value" and "gross estimated rental," an explanation of which
many members of the House stood greatly in need. A smart passage of arms
followed between the Solicitor-General and Mr. Disraeli; and finally, upon
a division, the amendment was negatived by a narrow majority of seven
votes. Lord Dunkellin's motion, to the same effect with respect to the
borough franchise, met with very different success. Its mover supported
the principle of rating rather than rental, because he believed it, he
said, to be the more convenient, inexpensive, and constitutional method
of giving the franchise of the two. Whatever were the inequalities of
rating, the inequalities of rental, he contended, were greater still.
Mr. Gladstone again rose in answer, this time to give so determined a
statement of the course Government intended to pursue, that it was at
once felt that the crisis of the whole matter had at last been reached.
A warm and exciting debate followed. Mr. Bright strongly supported
Government, urging that if the amendment were carried, the great aim and
object of the Bill would be defeated, and the legitimate hopes of the
working classes once more disappointed. Other speakers followed, but
all the world knew there was not much to be said now on either side.
Finally, Mr. Gladstone clinched his first speech by the brief repetition
of Government's determination not to accept the amendment, and to regard
the carrying of it as incompatible with the further progress of the Bill.
It was a quarter-past one o'clock when the crowded House divided, and amid
a scene of great excitement the following numbers were announced: For the
amendment, 315; against it, 304. Majority against Government, 11. Long and
loud was the cheering of the Opposition. Mr. Disraeli had won his battle,
and the immediate political future, at least, was in the hands of the
Conservatives.
On the day following this important division it was generally known
that the Russell Ministry was at an end; in fact, in the evening Lord
Russell and Mr. Gladstone formally announced to the two Houses that the
Ministry had sent in their resignations to the Queen, and motions of
adjournment to the following Monday, the 25th of June, were agreed to. It
was on Tuesday, the 26th, however, that Mr. Gladstone made his promised
statement in the House of Commons. The House was crowded in every part,
and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose, he was greeted with a
burst of tumultuous cheering. "Sir," he said, "the suspense, which the
House yesterday so kindly consented to prolong, is at an end, and her
Majesty has been pleased to accept the resignation of their offices,
which was last week tendered by the Government. The House is aware that
her Majesty thought fit in her wisdom to postpone the acceptance of that
tender when it was first made. It appeared to her Majesty that, upon the
first aspect of the vote which led to the tender of our resignation, it
might, perhaps be considered as a matter of mere machinery and detail,
susceptible of adjustment, rather than as one which tended to break up
the framework of the Bill; and her Majesty also felt, and I think the
House and the country, without distinction of party, will agree in that
sentiment, that, in the present state of affairs on the continent of
Europe, there is necessarily a disadvantage in a change of Government.
Without the slightest approach to any invidious preference or distinction,
it may truly be said that at such a moment it is not easy for any incoming
Administration to step at once into the exact conditions of relations with
Governments and Ministers abroad which was enjoyed by their predecessors;
and that difficulty, whatever may be its amount, is in itself a public
disadvantage." Upon these grounds, then, the Queen had been for some
little time unwilling to accept their resignation, until a long conference
with Lord Russell had convinced her that the step was inevitable, and the
resignations were accepted.
The accuracy of this statement is fully borne out by the correspondence
between Lord Russell and the Queen, published by Mr. Spencer Walpole in
his "Life of Lord John Russell." From the first her Majesty had desired
that, in view of the serious state of the Continent, the Ministry should
act in a spirit of compromise and conciliation. The Prime Minister fully
acknowledged the critical condition of foreign affairs, and therefore
strongly advised her Majesty to postpone her visit to Scotland. But he
also wrote that "Lord Russell would ill serve your Majesty's interests
and those of the country if, by any premature concession, he were to
expose his own character and that of Mr. Gladstone to the loss of public
confidence, and those who would most taunt and reproach them with such a
concession would be their implacable and inveterate enemies." This was
before the division on Lord Dunkellin's motion; after it had occurred,
he wrote that the proceedings of the last few weeks had convinced the
Ministry that nothing was to be gained by protracted discussions on the
Bill, that the reasons against a dissolution, founded on the general
apathy of the South of England, appeared to them valid, and that there
was no alternative to a resignation. The Queen replied that she had
been completely taken by surprise, as she understood that there was no
crisis, and that she did not consider Ministers were fulfilling their
duty to herself or the country by abandoning their posts in consequence
of a defeat on a matter of detail and not of principle. The Premier
stuck to his text that Lord Dunkellin's amendment was a vital issue; he
thought, however, that it might be possible to postpone the Bill with a
declaration that it would be submitted unaltered to the present or a new
Parliament. Finally, the Cabinet determined that if they could obtain
from the House an expression of confidence together with a desire for the
reintroduction of the Bill at an early period, they would retain their
offices. When there appeared no reasonable prospect of the fulfilment of
these conditions, they had no option but to resign.
The dislocation of the Liberal party was so complete that no reasonable
prospect remained of a stable Government being formed by any of the
fractions into which it had been temporarily shivered. When, therefore,
the Queen sent for Lord Derby and requested him to form a Ministry, that
statesman, although the Conservative party was in so decided a minority in
the House of Commons, accepted without hesitation the responsibility of
undertaking the government of the country. Mr. Disraeli became Chancellor
of the Exchequer; Mr. Walpole went to the Home Office; Lord Stanley and
Lord Cranborne were appointed Secretaries for Foreign Affairs and for
India respectively; General Peel and Sir John Pakington accepted the chief
posts in the War Office and the Admiralty; Lord Carnarvon became Secretary
for the Colonies; and the Marquis of Abercorn accepted the Vice-royalty
of Ireland. This, it will be evident, was a purely Conservative
Administration; such, however, had not been the desire of Lord Derby,
who made overtures to some of the leaders of the recalcitrant Liberals,
which were declined. Mr. Lowe was approached, so were Lord Grosvenor and
Lord Lansdowne; the last would have joined, had not his sudden death
intervened. Lord Shaftesbury also declined, and so did Lord Clarendon,
either because, according to Bishop Wilberforce, he "hated Disraeli," or
because, according to Lord Malmesbury, the Conservative irregulars were
preparing an attack on his foreign policy. The Adullamites would have
joined a Government under Lord Stanley, whose explanation of his father's
ill success with the dissentient Whigs made a few days later to his
constituents at Lynn, was doubtless the true one. "We have not desired,"
he said, "to form our Administration upon any narrow party basis There
are many of the Whig party whose sympathies are well known to be with
us, whose support in debate and divisions we have no doubt of receiving,
and whose official co-operation, where it has been asked, has only been
withheld not on account of any real or wide difference of political
opinion, but rather from that natural and honourable scruple which makes
men shrink from the appearance of changing their party--of walking, as the
phrase is, across the floor of the House--under circumstances where they
may possibly appear to be personal gainers by the change."
[Illustration: THE LOBBY, HOUSE OF COMMONS.]
Mr. Disraeli went down for re-election to his constituents in
Buckinghamshire, and there delivered an address that adumbrated with
considerable clearness the course which the new Government intended
to, and which it actually did, pursue. There was a notion that the
Conservatives were more favourable to intervention in the affairs of
foreign countries than the Liberals; that in their hands the country was
more likely to drift into war; and this notion, so fatal to the popularity
of any political party with that pacific generation of Englishmen, Mr.
Disraeli took great pains to dispel. "The abstention of England from any
unnecessary interference in the affairs of Europe is the consequence, not
of her decline of power, but of her increased strength. England is no
longer a mere European Power; she is the metropolis of a great maritime
empire, extending to the boundaries of the farthest ocean. It is not
that England has taken refuge in a state of apathy, that she now almost
systematically declines to interfere in the affairs of the continent
of Europe. England is as ready and as willing to interfere as in old
days, when the necessity of her position requires it. There is no Power,
indeed, that interferes more than England. She interferes in Asia, because
she is really more an Asiatic Power than a European. She interferes in
Australia, in Africa, and in New Zealand, where she carries on war often
on a great scale. Therefore it is not because England does not recognise
her duty to interfere in the affairs of the continent of Europe, that
persons are justified in declaring that she has relinquished her imperial
position, and has taken refuge in the _otium cum dignitate_ which agrees
with the decline of life, of power, and of prosperity. On the contrary,
she has a greater sphere of action than any European Power, and she has
duties devolving upon her on a much larger scale." On the subject of
Parliamentary Reform Mr. Disraeli was decidedly explicit. He would not
for one moment allow that Reform was a Liberal preserve, and that in
dealing with the question the Conservatives were poaching on forbidden
ground. "I hear very often," he said, "that the subject of Parliamentary
Reform is the great difficulty of the present Ministry, and will be their
stumbling-block. I am quite of a different opinion. I see no difficulty in
the subject at all; and if we stumble, rest assured we shall not stumble
over the subject of Parliamentary Reform. If Parliamentary Reform is to
be dealt with, I consider the present Government have as good a right to
deal with it as any body of statesmen in existence. The great Reform Bill
of 1832 was mainly devised by Lord Derby, and was entirely carried by his
energy; and with regard to the only measure on the subject, since the
great Reform Bill, ever mentioned with respect, why, I myself brought it
in. I have remarked, during the recent campaign in the House of Commons,
that every division that took place, and every strong manifestation of
opinion which was expressed, ratified the principle upon which the Bill of
1859 was founded. And night after night, sitting in that House opposite to
me, distinguished Liberals of all hues rose, and, in a tone of courteous
penitence, publicly avowed how much they regretted they had voted against
the Bill of 1859."
On the 9th of July, the new arrangements having been completed, Lord Derby
made a Ministerial statement in the House of Lords, the leading ideas of
which were in close agreement with those enunciated by Mr. Disraeli in the
speech from which we have just quoted. At this late period of the Session,
the Budget for the year having been already discussed and settled, it was
out of the question that the new Government should do more than wind up
the business of legislation with all possible despatch, and then dismiss
the members to their homes. In a considerable section of the large Liberal
majority that now crowded the Opposition benches, a determination was
apparent to give the new Ministry a fair trial, and neither to join in,
nor permit the success of, any factious or precipitate attempt to place
them in a minority.
Besides that of the Premier, but one important Ministerial statement
was made before the close of the Session; this, which was delivered by
Lord Cranborne on the 19th of July, related to the finances of India,
and was regarded on both sides of the House as a masterly and lucid
exposition. Though so far satisfactory, inasmuch as it showed that, during
the last three years, the Indian Government had very nearly succeeded
in establishing an equilibrium between receipts and expenditure, it was
calculated to occasion some anxiety on account of the proofs which it
afforded of the inelastic character of a large proportion of the sources
from which the Indian revenue is derived, of the complete failure of
the income tax, on the introduction of which such ardent hopes had been
founded, and of the degree in which the prosperity of Indian finance was
dependent on the rise or fall of the opium tax. The estimate of revenue
from this single tax was £8,500,000; and Lord Cranborne reluctantly
admitted that "opium had become the essential element in Eastern finance."
Yet the general picture which he drew of the material condition of India
was eminently satisfactory. The railway expenditure had been a source of
enormous success; the Great Indian Peninsula line paid 7 per cent. on its
capital, and the East Indian nearly 5 per cent., though neither of them
was fully and thoroughly opened. Taking a comprehensive survey of the
condition of India, he said that "education was progressing; public works,
particularly of irrigation, were going on; railways advancing; the Ganges
Canal had been rendered more fitted for its great purposes; and there was
much evidence of prosperity."
The administrative skill and prudence of the new Home Secretary were
severely tested before the close of the Session. On the committee of the
Reform League of London Mr. Edmond Beales and Colonel Dickson were the
most influential persons, and in a series of meetings they had taught
their audiences to believe that without manhood suffrage and the ballot
the British Constitution was one-sided and imperfect. The advent to
power of a Conservative Ministry raised the ardour of the Leaguers to a
pitch of yet more enthusiastic warmth than before, and it was announced
that a great public meeting would be held in Hyde Park, on the evening
of the 23rd of July, in order to demand the immediate extension of the
suffrage. The authorities feared that the demonstration, occurring at
so late an hour, might be taken advantage of by the "roughs" to create
a disturbance, under cover of which thefts on a large scale might be
perpetrated; it was resolved, therefore, that this meeting should be
prohibited. Placards signed by the Chief Commissioner of Police, Sir
Richard Mayne, were, early in the afternoon, extensively posted throughout
London, stating that the park gates would be closed to the public at five
o'clock. The League and its adherents viewed the attempt to suppress their
oratory with the deepest indignation, and a written notice was forwarded
by the "Demonstration Committee" to the various sub-committees, to the
effect that the members were to march in procession to the park, and, if
prevented from entering it, were then to form four deep, and proceed by
way of Grosvenor Place, Victoria Street, and past the Houses of Parliament
to Trafalgar Square. The Procession of Leaguers was formed on Clerkenwell
Green, when several speeches of a highly inflammatory nature were
delivered before the march was commenced.
The procession set out shortly before five o'clock, and proceeded along
Holborn and Oxford Street to the Marble Arch. Here things presented an
animated appearance. A force of foot and mounted police, numbering 1,600
or 1,800, had been assembled within the park, under the direction of Sir
Richard Mayne and Captain Harris; and at five o'clock the gates were
closed. A large number of spectators had previously entered the park, to
witness the arrival of the procession; and with these the police did not
interfere. Arrived at the Marble Arch, Mr. Beales, Colonel Dickson, and
other prominent Leaguers, alighted from the foremost carriages, and going
up to the gate, demanded admission to the park from the police. This was
refused, on the authority of "our Commissioner;" and then Mr. Beales,
re-forming the procession as well as he could in the midst of the dense
crowd, led as many as would follow him down Park Lane, and, by the streets
already named, to Trafalgar Square. Here several speeches were delivered,
but all accounts represent the proceedings as remarkably tame.
Meanwhile the mob that had gathered about the Marble Arch, both in Park
Lane and in Bayswater Road, exasperated at the loss of the excitement
which the meeting would have afforded them, and partly, no doubt, animated
by resentment at what seemed needlessly arbitrary conduct on the part of
the police, pressed close up to the park railings; the bolder spirits
seized them, shook them; grasped by hundreds of strong hands at once,
they swayed--they gave way. In an instant a hundred practicable breaches
afforded that admission into the park which the police had denied.
Down came the police, horse and foot, upon the invaders; but they were
distracted by the multitude of inroads, and disconcerted by the ease with
which the railings were laid prostrate in every direction. They used their
truncheons freely, and many a head was cut open; but the mob, besides the
advantage of overwhelming numbers, took to stone-throwing, and many of
the police were severely injured. Sir Richard Mayne, who had himself been
wounded, then sent for the military. A detachment of Foot Guards soon
arrived, followed by a troop of Life Guards. The mob cheered the soldiers,
who posted themselves near the Marble Arch, occasionally marching upon
any specially dense assemblage of persons, and compelling them to shift
their ground. Speeches were made by excited orators at various points
within the park, after the mob had forced their way in; but the confusion
that prevailed was such that little attention seems to have been paid to
them. On the southern side of the park also, in the Knightsbridge Road,
a number of mischievous persons congregated, and broke down two hundred
yards of the park railing. After the arrival of the soldiers, the police
endeavoured to make a number of arrests, in doing which they met with
violent resistance, and were in many cases severely handled. The partisans
of order were presently reinforced by a second detachment of Foot Guards,
who, with the first detachment, received orders to be in readiness to
fire, should it become necessary. Encounters between the police and the
mob then grew less frequent, and finally quiet was restored when another
body of Life Guards arrived, and assisted in removing the mob from the
park. Much stone-throwing was all this time going on in the streets,
and the windows of the Athenæum and United Service Clubs, as well as of
a number of private houses, were broken. No lives were lost, though a
considerable number of persons received severe injuries.
Mr. Walpole, the new Home Secretary, a man of remarkable humanity and
gentleness, was afflicted beyond measure by the turn matters had taken.
He received a deputation of the Leaguers at the Home Office two days
afterwards, and in conversation with them actually shed tears, and came to
the somewhat ignominious understanding with them, that Government would
cause the police and the military to be withdrawn from the park until the
question as to the legal right of the people to claim admission to it had
been decided, the League meanwhile undertaking to do its best to prevent
any breach of the peace or other misconduct within the park enclosure!
The consequence of such deplorable weakness may be conceived. In a London
paper of the following week it was stated: "The park is still infested,
night after night, by numerous bands of thieves and ruffians, who are
left to prey on defenceless passengers or unwary loungers after dusk,
without the slightest interference of the park-keepers or the police.
Several gross outrages, perpetrated in Hyde Park, about eight or nine
o'clock in the evening, since the enclosure was destroyed last week, have
been narrated by the sufferers themselves, or by witnesses to the fact,
in letters to the daily papers.... A herd of men and boys, estimated at
300 or 400, of the worst class of habitual malefactors, are permitted
to assemble and prowl about the ground, waiting for an opportunity of
plunder."
In Parliament the conduct of Government in prohibiting the meeting was
much canvassed and, by some speakers, severely censured. Mr. Ayrton said
that, instead of appealing at once to force, the Home Secretary ought to
have met the people in a conciliatory spirit on the matter of right and
should have issued a temperate notification explaining how the case really
stood. Mr. Mill declared that if the people had not a right to meet in
the parks, they ought to have it. He added that, as Government seemed
inclined to enrol their names on the list of those who could do more
mischief in an hour than others could repair in years, he exhorted them
to consider seriously the gravity of what they had done on this occasion.
But the majority of speakers on both sides of the House, including
statesmen of long experience, were of opinion that Government, though
perhaps every step taken by Mr. Walpole might not have been judicious,
were substantially justified in what they had done; and Mr. Disraeli
declared that "it had never entered the minds of Ministers that the real
working man, whose general orderly conduct he cordially acknowledged,
would commit acts of riot, but they believed that the scum of the great
city would take advantage of such an assemblage, and the justice of their
apprehensions was proved by the event."
The Queen's Speech at the close of the Session was read by the new Lord
Chancellor (Lord Chelmsford) on the 10th of August. It contained several
paragraphs on the Fenian conspiracy, and the doings of the Fenians both in
Ireland and in Canada, recording in terms of grateful acknowledgment the
good faith and promptitude of the United States Government in checking at
the outset "any attempted invasion of a friendly State." It alluded with
satisfaction to the fact that, although the late Ministry, in the presence
of a financial crisis of almost unexampled severity, had authorised the
Bank of England to infringe the letter of the Bank Charter Act of 1844, if
such a step were required for the accommodation of their customers, yet no
such infringement had actually taken place, the Bank having been able to
weather the storm without it. It spoke of the gradual mitigation of the
cattle plague, of the late visitation of cholera, and of the successful
laying of the Atlantic cable. The murrain had, indeed, continued its
ravages during the earlier half of the year; but, fortunately, as time
went on, the stringent precautions that had been enforced by the Privy
Council produced the desired effect: the cases showed a progressive
reduction in number; and by the end of the year the plague, though not
extinct, was in a material degree abated. Wales continued almost wholly
exempt from the disease; in the South of England its virulence was
continually on the decline; only in the north-western counties it seemed
to hold its ground tenaciously, and in the dairy farms of Cheshire many
ancient pastures were given up in despair to the plough. The total loss
to the country from the disease, even in this year of improvement, was
computed at not less than £3,500,000 in money.
[Illustration: REFORM LEAGUERS AT THE MARBLE ARCH. (_See p._ 403.)]