retained the confidence of the Conservative back benches, was severe; and
no less severe was the language of Mr. Lowe, who spoke immediately after.
If Lord Cranborne was bitter because he, and genuine Conservatives with
him, had been sacrificed to keep, as he said, "political adventurers"
in office, Mr. Lowe was furious because he had succeeded in turning out
the Liberal Government in 1866 only to make way for a more revolutionary
Tory Government in 1867. "Was it to be conceived," he said, "that right
honourable gentlemen, who had given no indications of the extreme facility
of changing their opinions and lending themselves to the art of treachery,
would, for the sake of keeping a few of them in office for a short time
and giving some small patronage to half a dozen lawyers, have been
prepared to sacrifice all the principles, all the convictions, all the
traditions of their lives; while others were prepared to turn round upon
their order and the institutions of their country, merely for the purpose
of sitting behind these right honourable gentlemen, and hearing, with
the knowledge that it is all true, language such as that the noble lord
[Cranborne] has used to-night?" However, Mr. Lowe had, in the midst of his
wrath, what may be called "lucid intervals" of foresight and practical
reflection upon the consequences of the Bill. Every one admitted that it
was to pass; every one admitted that its effect would be striking and
immediate. What, then, ought to be the attitude of Parliament and public
opinion? Clearly, to soften "the blow which had been levelled at our
ancient institutions" as much as possible. "We must," said Mr. Lowe, in an
afterwards famous epigram--"we must persuade our masters to learn their
letters."
Several other speeches followed, none of them very complimentary to
Government, and Mr. Disraeli was not happy in his attempt to answer them.
He had to perform the impossible task of showing that the Conservative
party had in this measure acted in a purely Conservative spirit, and in
a manner consistent with previous professions. Instead of taking up the
tenable ground that the Conservative party had seen good cause, on an
examination of figures and facts, to change their old opinions, he boldly
asserted that the old opinions remained unchanged and were embodied in
this Bill. With a noble audacity he declared that even in 1859--the year
when Lord Derby's first Reform Bill was projected--"the Cabinet was
unanimous ... that if we attempted to reduce the borough qualification
which then existed, we must have recourse to household suffrage;"
an assertion which it is sufficient to say was flatly contradicted
soon afterwards by Lord Carnarvon in the House of Lords. But neither
questionable paradoxes on Mr. Disraeli's part, nor fierce invective on Mr.
Lowe's, had any influence on the success of the Bill. When the Speaker put
the momentous words from the chair, "That this Bill do now pass," only one
obstinate voice cried "No;" and a shout of "Aye," audible far beyond the
limits of the House, gave Mr. Disraeli the happy assurance that his Bill
had passed the Commons.
The Bill had passed the Commons, but it was not yet law. Indeed, when Lord
Derby rose to move the second reading of the Reform Bill in the House
of Lords on July 22nd--exactly a week after it had left the Commons--he
found his own party by no means so manageable as Mr. Disraeli had found
them in the Lower House. The debate was long and the speeches were able,
and though in the end the second reading passed without a division, yet
the speeches were very nearly unanimous in disapproving of the measure.
Lord Cairns, indeed, approved the Bill warmly, and made no secret of
his hopes from "the _residuum_." "We know that on most subjects there
is a considerable difference of opinion between what are called the
higher artisan class and those below them," said he; that is, we know
that there is a gulf fixed between the bricklayer and the bricklayer's
labourer. Lord Cairns appealed, in the name of the Conservatives, from
the bricklayer to the bricklayer's labourer. This, he said, was the
distinction between the Bill of 1866 and the present Bill: the line of
£7 rental would let in the "higher artisan class" only--a class presumed
to be hostile to Conservatism; and household rating suffrage would let in
the "class below them"--a class easily manageable at election times. This
dangerous argument was, however, not generally supported in the House.
Lord Shaftesbury said: "To proceed as is done by this Bill, to lift by the
sudden jerk of an Act of Parliament the whole residuum of society up to
the level of the honest, thrifty working-man, is, I believe, distasteful
to the working-men themselves. I am sure it dishonours the suffrage."
This was in the debate raised by Lord Grey's amendment, which was to the
effect that "the Representation of the People Bill does not appear to
the House to be calculated, in its present shape, to effect a permanent
settlement of this important question, or to promote the future good
government of the country." Lord Grey, however, did not mean to oppose the
second reading, but only to show to the Commons what the Lords considered
to be weak points in their Bill, and in the end, finding that the common
opinion of the House accepted the Bill as inevitable, he withdrew his
amendment--not, however, before Lord Carnarvon, one of the seceding
Ministers, had spoken in words that almost echoed the furious charges of
Lord Cranborne and Mr. Lowe in the other House. Speaking of Mr. Disraeli's
assertion, to which we have already referred, that household suffrage had
been the secret doctrine of the Conservatives ever since 1859, he gave it
the most emphatic contradiction.
[Illustration: JOHN BRIGHT.
(_From the Portrait by Frank Holl, R.A. By Permission of the Corporation
of Birmingham._)]
In the end four important amendments were proposed by the Lords, who
showed a very different attitude from that which their fathers had
shown in 1832. There was throughout the whole of the speeches of the
peers a note of sadness and dissatisfaction; but none thought seriously
of rejecting the Bill altogether. And the amendments, important in
themselves, did not touch the household suffrage, which was the bugbear
of the Bill, and did not even attempt to restore the compound householder
for the purpose of robbing household suffrage of its sting. The important
amendments were:--(1) To raise the qualification for lodgers to £15,
instead of £10--proposed by Lord Cairns; (2) To restore £10, instead of
£5, as the copyhold qualification in counties--proposed by Lord Harrowby;
(3) To secure a representation of minorities in the "three-cornered
constituencies"--proposed by Lord Cairns; (4) To allow the employment
of voting papers at elections--proposed by the Marquis of Salisbury. Of
these, the first was passed by a majority of 121 to 89; the second by
a majority of 119 to 56. Both these decisions were, however, finally
reversed by the Commons by large majorities; nor was the amendment
allowing the use of voting papers any more successful. The Lords, with
a good grace, submitted to correction, and the Bill remained, in these
respects, the same as it had been when it originally passed the House of
Commons.
With regard to Lord Cairns's more successful amendment relating to the
rights of minorities, a little more may be said. It was not a new idea;
the claims of minorities to a voice in affairs had long been felt to
be a serious question by political theorists, especially Mr. Mill and
Mr. Thomas Hare; and Mr. Lowe had attempted, earlier in the Session,
to get those claims recognised in the Bill by the introduction of some
clauses resembling those of Lord Cairns. Lord Cairns proposed, "That at
a contested election for any county or borough, no person shall vote
for more than two candidates"--adding, a short time afterwards, that in
elections for the City of London, where four members are returned, no one
should vote for more than three candidates. This amendment, the object of
which was to enable the minority in the boroughs of Manchester, Liverpool,
and Birmingham, in the City of London, and in certain counties, to "lump"
their votes on one candidate, and so secure his return, was carried by a
large majority--142 to 91. When the amendment came down to the Commons,
after the amended Bill had been read a third time in the House of Lords,
it was warmly debated. Mr. Lowe's previous motion, to allow any elector
to have as many votes as there were vacant seats, and to give all his
votes to one candidate if he chose, had been rejected by a majority of
141; but now the opinion of many members had changed. The debate was
carried on quite independently of the ordinary party divisions; instead,
the division seemed to be between those who wished in all cases to follow
the outlines of English political precedent, and those who believed
that those precedents were sometimes clumsy and inconvenient. For once,
the House enjoyed the unusual sight of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, and
Mr. Bright all taking one side on a contested question; the principal
supporters of the other side being Mr. Mill and Mr. Lowe. Strange to say,
the accustomed leaders of the House failed to carry their views into
effect. The amendment was passed by a majority of 253 to 204.
It is enough to add that, on the Report being presented to the Lords, that
House agreed to the corrections of the House of Commons, and was content
to have carried one of its four amendments. On August 15th, 1867, the
Royal Assent was given to the "Representation of the People Act;" and for
a time at least the Reform question was settled.
Lord Derby ushered the Bill out of the House on the third reading with
words that immediately became famous: "No doubt we are making a great
experiment, and taking a leap in the dark." That, indeed, was the
feeling of many of the Conservatives, and even of many of the moderate
Liberals; and few of the cartoons of _Punch_ have been more effective
than that which, illustrating the Prime Minister's words, represented him
as a steeple-chaser, charging with shut eyes at a fence of portentous
thickness, beyond which lay an unknown country. But another of _Punch's_
cartoons gave the honour of the Bill to its real author, though there were
long afterwards those who asserted, in agreement with Mr. Bright, that it
was "Lord Derby's Bill." On the walls of the Royal Academy had hung in
that year's exhibition a wonderful picture by a new artist--Mr. Poynter's
"Israel in Egypt." It showed the mighty form of the Sphinx, the mysterious
Egyptian monster that still remains half buried in sand in the Theban
Desert, dragged upon a car to its place by a thousand toiling Israelitish
slaves. The spectator, as he gazed upon the picture, could almost hear the
crack of the slavedriver's whip, and the groan of the miserable wretch
who fell under the wheels; the crowd of bending forms seemed alive, the
car seemed moving. This was the picture that _Punch_ parodied. To a
place in the Temple of Success and Fame a car was moving, dragged by
straining multitudes; the multitudes bore the well-known likeness of the
members of the English House of Commons, and the figure on the car wore
the mysterious, Sphinx-like, Oriental features of Mr. Disraeli! "Israel
in Egypt" became "Disraeli in Triumph;" the slaves bending beneath the
weight, and torn by the merciless lash of necessity, were her Majesty's
Ministers and the blind, dazed, unwilling, but yet obedient members of the
Conservative party.
Parliamentary Reform occupied nearly all the time of the House of Commons
during the first of the two Sessions of 1867; but still on the "off days"
there were several important discussions and some important legislation.
The Reform Bill only applied to England and Wales, and in the unquiet
state of Ireland Government did not propose to make any alterations in
the electoral law of that country. To Scotland they wished to apply a
measure very similar to the English one--only differing from it, in fact,
so far as the exigencies of Scottish law required. Household suffrage
in its simple form in the boroughs, in the counties a reduction of the
qualification like that effected in England, and a moderate redistribution
of seats were the main features of the Government measure. It was not,
however, carried during this year from want of time.
Although Ireland had not assumed that prominence in the debates of
Parliament which she held afterwards, there were "Irish debates" in
plenty; and political prophets saw clearly that Ireland was to be the
immediate question for the Reformed Parliament to grapple with. First
came the proposal of Lord Naas, unfortunately rendered necessary, for
the continued suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The Secretary to the
Lord-Lieutenant explained that he had hoped to be able to dispense with
these extraordinary powers, but that fresh signs of activity had appeared
among the disaffected population. When the mysterious "invasion" of
Chester happened (an event to be immediately described), a simultaneous
attempt at a rising was made at Cahirciveen, in the county of Kerry; and
symptoms of revolt made themselves apparent in some of the large towns.
He, therefore, with great regret, asked for the suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act for three months longer; and the gravity of the emergency was
shown by the fact that the seconder of the motion was Sir John Grey. The
suspension was allowed by the House, and also by the House of Lords; but
it was with considerable alarm that, three months later, the country heard
that Government had found it necessary to apply again to Parliament for
a further suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The Queen's Speech at the
beginning of the Session had "trusted that Parliament might be enabled to
dispense with the continuance of any exceptional legislation" for Ireland,
and yet the continuance was twice asked for. This was generally felt to
be an instance of a want of foresight on the part of the Ministry; though
Lord Naas announced that the disturbances in Ireland were caused by the
resolutions adopted at a Fenian meeting held at New York in January, when
an attempt at insurrection was decreed. The debate that took place on
Lord Naas making his second proposal called forth a great deal of that
fund of contradictory opinion on Irish questions which was so richly
exhibited in the debates of two years later. The request of Government
was, however, granted without difficulty. Bills tending to the prevention
of discontent, as well as to its cure, were also discussed during the
Session, but they only served to show what was afterwards proved by Mr.
Gladstone's Ministry, namely, that the question of Irish remedies was far
too complicated, far too debateable, to be disposed of in a casual debate
or two thrown in amidst a busy Session. No motions of private members,
such as was that of Sir Colman O'Loghlen, no Ministerial afterthoughts,
like the Bill of Lord Naas for "promoting the improvement of land by
tenants," could solve the Land Question; and the House showed its sense
of this by allowing these measures to drop after short discussions. In
the same way with the Irish Church Question. Sir John Gray brought it
forward on the 7th of May, in the thick of the Reform campaign, and, of
course, his motion--"That the House would on a future day resolve itself
into a committee to consider the temporalities and privileges of the
Established Church of Ireland"--had no chance of success at such a time.
It drew, however, from Mr. Gladstone another of those emphatic statements
of disapproval of the existing Establishment which, begun in 1865, had
cost him his seat for Oxford University, and which ended in 1869, when he
carried Disestablishment. In the House of Lords, Lord Russell moved for a
Royal Commission to inquire into the revenues of the Established Church
of Ireland, and his motion was agreed to. The investigations made by the
Commissioners appointed in consequence of this motion formed the basis of
the action of the Liberal Government two years later.
Other subjects that occupied the attention of Parliament during the year
were, besides various points of foreign policy, Church Rates, Religious
Tests in the Universities, Religious Disabilities in various offices in
Ireland, Increase of the Episcopate, National Education, the Factory
Acts and their possible extension, the Agricultural Gangs, and the Right
of Meeting in the London Parks. In the second and extraordinary Session
of Parliament, which was called together in the autumn to vote supplies
for the Abyssinian expedition, a few other matters were brought forward;
but the principal concern of that short Session was the subject that had
called the House together. That, however, is a matter that may fairly be
left until we come to speak of the year 1868, when the whole story of the
causes, circumstances, and results of the expedition will be told. On the
other questions we have mentioned little actual legislation was achieved,
but the tendency of future legislation was foreshadowed.
The Oaths and Offices Bill had for its object the removal of the
restriction that prevents a Roman Catholic from being Lord Chancellor of
Ireland, and of various small disabilities, relics of the old penal laws,
which Roman Catholics still suffered in Ireland. The Bill was passed after
some discussion. Mr. Coleridge's Bill for abolishing religious tests
required from members of Oxford University in taking certain degrees and
in being elected to certain offices, was not so fortunate. The House of
Lords rejected it after it had been passed by the Commons--and passed
in an extended form, applying to Cambridge as well as to Oxford. The
Lords seem to have thought that their concessions on the subject of
Reform were as much as could be expected from them in one Session. Nor
did they accept with any unanimity Lord Lyttelton's Bill for extending
the Episcopate; and the Bill had to be withdrawn. National Education was
approached, but no more, in a Bill brought in by Mr. Bruce, a prominent
member of the Opposition. Mr. Bruce based his Bill upon many of the same
statistics that afterwards lent strength to Mr. Forster's advocacy of a
similar proposal--as, for instance, where he showed that in the diocese
of London, containing 361,000 children who ought to be at school, only
182,000 (almost exactly one half) were actually at school. The Bill was
in some points singularly like Mr. Forster's Bill of 1870, and in many
points unlike it; it showed the same favour to the local system, and
proposed the appointment of "school committees" with the functions, or
nearly the functions, of the school boards afterwards established; and
it showed the same regard for religious education. It was not proposed
with any intention of being carried into law; it was only an instance
of the common Parliamentary device of inviting a Government to declare
itself, and of showing to the Opposition, in case of an unsatisfactory
Government answer, what the tactics of their own leaders would be if
they were to be restored to power. Other measures especially affecting
the wage-earning classes that were carried into law were measures for
extending the operation of the Factory Acts to certain occupations not
included in them, and thus increasing the protection afforded to women and
children in the great towns; and also strong legislative restrictions upon
what is known as the "gang system." This last, which prevailed especially
in the eastern counties, was the system by which children of both sexes
were gathered together in gangs by a contractor, or "ganger," and let out
to the farmers to work in the fields at weeding or sowing. It is obvious
that a system of this kind was full of danger, both to the physical and
moral well-being of the children. Too often the contractors were hard men,
whose one object was to make as much money as possible out of their gangs;
and for this they would overwork the children's bodies and leave them
morally uncared for. An Act was passed applying the same principles to the
agricultural gangs as had been applied to the factories, and asserting
the right of Parliament to protect the children and limit the powers of
the gang-masters. It laid down hours beyond which it was unlawful for the
children to work, and imposed other restrictions on the employment of
girls. It worked well even at first; and later, when supplemented by the
Elementary Education Act of 1870, it put it still more out of the power
of parents to sell their children's whole time, to give them up body and
soul, to the weary drudgery of farm labour.
[Illustration: "GANG SYSTEM" OF FARMING. (_See p._ 452.)]
The time of Parliament was further occupied with discussions on the
Right of Meeting in the Metropolitan Parks. The way in which, in 1866,
the populace and Mr. Beales took this question into their own hands and
marched into Hyde Park across the ruins of the railings has already been
recorded; and it has been said how keenly Mr. Secretary Walpole felt
the distress of the situation. Again in this year the Reform League was
active. The conduct of Government with regard to Reform had not, at least
early in the Session, pleased the ardent Reformers; they distrusted Mr.
Disraeli's obscure eloquence, they thought the "system of checks and
counterpoises" was far too clever to be satisfactory. Accordingly, it was
resolved by the leaders of the League to hold another meeting in the Park,
on the 6th of May. But on the 1st of May a proclamation appeared whereby
all persons were warned and admonished to abstain from attending, aiding,
or taking part in any such meeting, or from entering the Park with a view
to attend, aid, or take part in any such meeting. This was an instance
of the "spirit of conciliation and compromise" English statesmen are so
fond of, which succeeds so poorly in times of high excitement. Government
intended to leave the Park gates open, and not to attempt to disperse
the meeting by force, and yet it "admonished" people not to attend. Of
course, the proclamation excited much discussion in Parliament; and Mr.
Bright made an energetic statement of his belief that the parks were
"public places," and an energetic protest against the proposal to swear
in special constables--a measure which, he said, always tends to promote
class hostility, and to create breaches between the divisions of the
people. With this declaration of "the Tribune" to back them, the Reform
League carried out its plan in the face of the Government admonition.
Seventy thousand persons formed the audience of the speakers in the
Park; a hundred thousand more, drawn partly by real interest in Reform,
and partly by curiosity, filled the approaches and the open spaces; and
"the Ring" was filled with the carriages of rich people, who had come
to look on. There was absolutely no disturbance. The O'Donoghue, Mr.
Beales, Colonel Dickson, Mr. Odger, Mr. Lucraft, and other well-known
Reformers made speeches, and the meeting quietly dispersed at dusk, with
no occasion for the 5,000 police and the soldiers who were in readiness
close by to come in and restore order. But Government felt that they had
received a check. Mr. Walpole resigned, "in consequence of the onerous
duties imposed upon him," and his place was filled by a man of less
susceptibility and more energy--Mr. Gathorne Hardy. He made many attempts
during the remainder of the Session to pass a Government Bill abolishing
the right of public meeting in the parks, but without success. The Reform
Bill occupied too exclusively the time of the House; and it was felt that
there was a certain invidiousness in passing a measure that would seem to
be directly aimed at the prominent Reformers at the very time when their
demand for Reform was being granted. Immediately after the passing of the
Representation of the People Act, Parliament was prorogued; but before the
year was over it was convoked again for an extraordinary Session, to be
described when we come to speak of the Abyssinian War.
The first occurrences outside Parliament that demand our attention are
those connected with the Fenian outbreak, which this year were marked by
a rare audacity, and occasioned great alarm in the public mind and severe
retributive measures. We have already said that in February a rising took
place in the county of Kerry. In December a martello tower near Cork was
attacked, and the arms were carried away; and in several places gunsmiths'
shops were broken into and robbed of their contents. But the alarm caused
by these outbreaks on Irish soil was as nothing compared with that caused
by certain outbreaks of Fenianism in England. The first of these was a
supposed attempt to take Chester Castle and make off with the arms and
ammunition contained in it.
Chester Castle is a mediæval fortress, and in 1867 it was used as a
garrison for a small number of troops, and a storehouse for arms. As was
afterwards discovered, a meeting had been held in New York early in the
year, in which it had been decided to attempt a rising in Ireland; and
a band of fifty men was sent over in detachments to the United Kingdom
to organise the rising. A central "Directory" of fifteen members was
understood to be established in London, and branch directories were placed
in many of the great towns. In obedience to orders from these authorities,
a movement was made upon Chester on February 11th. The Castle contained
at the time 9,000 stand of Enfield rifles, 4,000 swords, 900,000 rounds
of ammunition, and some arms belonging to the militia; and the only guard
consisted of a handful of men belonging to the 54th Regiment. During the
night of the 10th information was given to the Chester authorities by
the Liverpool police that an ex-officer in the American service--himself
a Fenian--had come to them, and made known the Fenian design, which was
to assemble in large numbers in Chester the next day, seize the Castle,
carry off the arms, break the telegraph wires, and tear up the rails on
the railway, and themselves escape, viâ Holyhead, to Ireland with their
booty. Very early in the morning the information began to be verified, and
large numbers of young men, apparently of the artisan or labouring class,
kept arriving by every train from Manchester, Liverpool, Stalybridge,
Preston, and other manufacturing towns. Meanwhile, the civil and military
authorities of Chester were actively employed; telegrams were passing
between them and the Assistant Adjutant-General at Manchester, and
Government and the Commander-in-Chief were also kept informed. Early
in the morning the volunteers were called out; and Mr. Walpole having
telegraphed instructions that they ought not to be employed as soldiers
in putting down a riot, but that they might as individuals assist the
authorities, and even, if necessary, use their arms, they were sworn in as
special constables. Still the invaders kept massing in the town. For some
reason, though their errand was very well known, they were not arrested
in detachments in the places from which they started, but were allowed to
come to Chester unimpeded. By five o'clock the strangers amounted to 1,500
in number, and yet the only force at the disposal of the authorities was a
company of soldiers of the 54th, some of the county constabulary, and the
volunteers as special constables. Yet, by extraordinary good fortune, this
most inadequate force was not put to the test of fighting. The Fenians,
seeing that some preparations had been made for their reception, suspected
that others might have been secretly made. So no attack was made upon the
Castle, although, between six and seven o'clock, when all the invading
force was present, and the great reinforcements had not arrived for the
defence, there were abundant opportunities, and good hopes of success.
During the evening a public meeting of the "friends of order" was held,
and 500 special constables were sworn in--a poor defence against thrice
their number of desperate men armed with revolvers. But the special
constables patrolled the town throughout the night, and by the morning it
was found that the Fenians had melted away. They had walked off in small
batches to Warrington and the other large towns in the neighbourhood.
After they had gone some relics of their visit were found, in the shape of
two haversacks containing privately-made ball-cartridges, and there were
other indications that they were prepared to fight. During the morning of
the 12th a battalion of 500 Foot Guards arrived from London--too late to
have prevented the attack, supposing the Fenians had made it when they
had so fair a chance; but not too late to relieve the anxious minds of
the inhabitants of Chester from the alarm and terror of the past day. It
is enough to add that sixty-seven "suspicious characters," all of them
probably members of the invading force, were arrested at Dublin, on the
morning of the 12th, as they landed from the Holyhead steamer. Nothing
very conclusive was found upon them to illustrate the history of the
Chester _fiasco;_ but the authorities, acting on the powers conferred
by the Act that suspended the Habeas Corpus, kept them in safe custody
in Richmond Bridewell. Finally some of the ringleaders, among whom was
Michael Davitt, were condemned to terms of imprisonment.
For some months after this Fenianism lay comparatively inactive, and the
public alarm had time to subside. But in September England was again
unpleasantly reminded of it by an event that took place at Manchester,
and which, in the audacity of its design and the desperate manner of
its execution, was sufficiently startling. The Manchester police,
about the 10th of the month, arrested two men who were behaving in a
suspicious manner at dead of night, and on each of them was found a
loaded revolver. From communications held with the Irish police, it was
discovered that these men were Fenians of considerable military rank in
the brotherhood--Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasey. They were remanded at
the police-court on their arrest; and on the 18th, after their second
examination, they were to be removed in the ordinary police-van to the
city gaol. As they were about to enter the van, the police saw two more
suspicious-looking men loitering about, and a constable seized one of
them, who attempted to stab him. This caused the police to handcuff Kelly
and Deasey, and they then entered the van. Seven policemen rode outside
and four more followed in a cab; but none of these were armed except
with the usual policeman's staff. The van drove off along its accustomed
route, over Ardwick Green and along the Hyde Road, in the outskirts of
Manchester. There is a railway-bridge that crosses this road; and the
van approached this bridge about four o'clock. As it did so, a tall
fair-haired young man ran out in front of it into the road, and presenting
a revolver at the driver summoned him to stop. A large body of men made
their appearance at the same moment; and then fired several shots at
the driver and the other policemen on the roof, shot the horses one
after another, hurled a stone that brought the driver from his seat, and
clambered up to the roof of the van to be in readiness to break it open if
the door could not be forced. The small body of unarmed constables made
a brave defence of the door; but axe and crowbar were being vigorously
employed, and forty or fifty men armed with revolvers were carrying on
the attack and firing without mercy. A crowd began to gather, but the
Fenian revolvers kept them back for the most part. Two of the constables,
Bromley and Trueman, were wounded; a civilian named Sprossen was shot in
the ankle. Still the door resisted; a hole had been made in the roof,
and stones had been let fall on the head of Sergeant Brett; he had been
summoned to give up the keys, but he steadily refused. Then a panel of the
door gave way, and one of the assailants, the tall young man who had led
the attack, and who was afterwards identified as William O'Meara Allen,
presented his revolver at the wounded policeman with a fresh demand for
the keys. When this was refused, he fired at the lock of the door and
blew it open. Again he demanded the keys--for the cells of the van were
each of them locked--and again was refused. Then he fired point blank at
the head of Brett, who fell mortally wounded, the bullet having passed
straight through the skull. The keys were now secured, the doors unlocked,
the two prisoners released. As a witness at the trial swore, Allen said to
one of them, "Arrah, Kelly, I'll die for you before I'll deliver you up!"
Then Kelly and Deasey made off, Allen threatening to shoot any one who
followed. The Fenians then dispersed, running across the fields or into
the town; and all of them escaped for the time with the exception of four,
including Allen, who were run down. Brett died very soon after receiving
the shot.
It may be imagined that so bold a rescue created consternation in the
minds not only of the inhabitants of Manchester, but of all English
people. It was the most reckless act the Fenians had as yet attempted;
and the uncompromising use of force, while it horrified people, showed
them once for all what a dangerous thing the Fenian conspiracy was. The
seriousness of the occasion was such that Government issued a special
commission for the trial of the prisoners, who, with the four who were
captured just after the rescue, numbered twenty-nine. The judges were
Justices Blackburn and Mellor, and before them twenty-six of the men who
had been arrested were arraigned, in different detachments, on counts
extending from the charge of wilful murder to the charge of riot and
assault. There is no need to state the facts of the trial at length;
when the law had once been laid down, the case became one simply of
identification. The Attorney-General, Sir John Karslake, held the Crown
brief, and explained the law--namely, that if men conspired and combined
to effect a rescue, prepared to use force if they were opposed, and if
from their action during the rescue death resulted, that amounted to the
crime of murder. The prisoners Allen, Larkin, Gould, Maguire, and Shore
were all identified by numerous witnesses as having led the attack on the
van; and many witnesses swore to Allen's having fired the fatal shot. They
were all found guilty, and, though each of them denied having actually
committed the murder, they were sentenced to death. To Maguire, however,
who was convicted in spite of very clear evidence of an _alibi_, the Home
Office sent a pardon; and Shore's punishment was commuted, because he
had not been armed with a revolver, but had only thrown stones. But with
the others the law took its course. Great efforts were made to obtain
a reprieve, and much energy was displayed by a section of the press in
showing that the crime for which they were to suffer was political, and
was not murder. But it was of no avail; the Ministry then in power was not
likely to take that view, nor even to recognise the proposition that no
political offences are capital. On November 23rd Allen, Larkin, and Gould
were executed at Manchester, in the presence of enormous crowds of people.
Their memory was consecrated by "processions" of their countrymen, held
on December 1st--a Sunday--in Manchester, and in Dublin, Limerick, and
other Irish towns. The Irish populace persisted in regarding the three men
as martyrs, and Mr. T. D. Sullivan commemorated the deed in the popular
ditty, "God save Ireland."
Whatever ultimate effect the execution had, it did not prevent certain
desperate sympathisers from outdoing in nefarious audacity the executed
men. It was known that the feelings of a large class of Irishmen were
embittered by the execution; but it was not suspected that within a very
short time a deed would be perpetrated in London that would throw the
Manchester rescue into the shade. Such a deed was, however, done; and,
once for all, it implanted in the minds of all classes of English people a
feeling of intense hatred towards Fenianism.
[Illustration: FENIAN ATTACK ON THE POLICE VAN IN MANCHESTER. (_See p._
455.)]
Two men, named Burke and Casey, had been arrested in London on a charge of
being Fenians; they were imprisoned, under a remand, in the Clerkenwell
House of Detention. This prison had an exercising-ground within its
walls, and at a fixed hour in the afternoon the prisoners were exercised
there. The wall of the exercising-ground ran along Corporation Lane; it
was about twenty-five feet in height and two feet in thickness, becoming
slightly thinner towards the top. The partisans of the Fenian prisoners
determined to blow down this wall during exercise-time, to give them a
chance of escaping in the confusion. Accordingly, about a quarter to four
on the afternoon of December 13th, a man came along the lane wheeling a
truck, on which was a barrel covered with a white cloth. This truck he
left opposite the wall, disappeared for a moment, and returned with a long
squib, which he fixed in the barrel. He then coolly borrowed a light from
some boys who were playing about close by, applied it to the squib, and
ran off. In a few seconds a horrible explosion took place, sounding like
the discharge of a park of artillery, and sending a shock through all that
district of London. The prison wall tottered and fell. The houses opposite
were shaken to their foundations, and several of them, after rocking for
a moment, came crashing down. The screams and groans of wounded people
mingled with the noise of falling rafters, and the clouds of dust that
rose from the ruins, choking the light of such lamps as stood the shock,
added to the horror of the scene. When search could be made, it was
found that at least forty people, many of them women and children, were
seriously hurt; one was dead already, and three died soon afterwards in
the hospital. The others, with their various degrees of injury, were taken
care of at St. Bartholomew's and at the Free Hospital, Gray's Inn Road,
until their recovery. It may be added that Burke and Casey did not escape,
the governor of the prison having, for that day, changed their hour of
exercise, so that when the explosion came they were safely in their cells.
Thus the attempt of the miscreants to release the prisoners was completely
frustrated. The excitement caused by this outrage was such as cannot be
described. Crowds of people thronged the scene of the explosion, and 500
police and a body of soldiers were necessary to keep order. Rumours of all
kinds found their way about London--that the Bank of England was blown up
and sacked; that the Tower of London was destroyed; that the explosion
was but the first of a series of plotted outrages meant to avenge the
"Manchester martyrs." These ideas, however, subsided when the facts
came to be known. Nevertheless Mr. Gladstone afterwards declared that
the Fenian outrages, by fixing public attention upon deeply-rooted Irish
grievances, had brought the Disestablishment of the Irish Church "within
the region of practical politics."
It was in this year that society was startled by certain revelations of
the proceedings of trades unions which were made before a commission
sitting at Sheffield. A number of mysterious outrages had taken place
periodically in that town; and a Royal Commission, which had been
appointed to investigate the nature and working of trades unions,
determined to probe to the bottom the supposed connection between these
acts and the unions. Accordingly it delegated its functions to three
barristers, of whom Mr. Overend, Q.C., was chairman, and sent them down
to Sheffield to inquire into the matter. A special Act of Parliament was
passed, allowing these gentlemen to give "certificates of indemnity" to
any witness who should confess to any illegal acts, for it was known
that without such certificates the questions of the commissioners would
never be answered. The result of the inquiry was to discover facts that
thrilled all England. A kind of _vehmgericht_, or secret tribunal, seemed
to have been set up, which passed sentence of death, and had its sentences
executed; which punished offenders against its secret laws by acts the
perpetrators of which could never be brought before their country's
justice; and which deprived obnoxious workmen of the means of life,
setting the rules of the trade in the place of law.
The cases that most excited public interest were those of crimes
instigated by one Broadhead, the secretary of the Sawgrinders' Union.
A man named Linley had broken the rules of the trade by taking more
apprentices than the proper number. In the words of the trade, he was
"filling it with lads." For this offence, which was supposed to injure
the chances of the men, Broadhead confessed that he had "set on" two
workmen, named Crookes and Hallam, to "do for" Linley--that is, to disable
him, or even to kill him, if necessary. This fact, which is but one out
of many, was revealed first of all by Hallam himself. When called upon
to give his evidence he was completely unmanned. He twice fainted away;
and when he came to himself, he could only speak in a whisper. In this
way he confessed with slow articulation how they had murdered Linley.
They had first bought a revolver and followed Linley about every night
for six weeks, watching their opportunity. Then they changed their plan
and bought an air-gun, of which they first of all made trial upon some
rabbits in a neighbouring wood. Afterwards they marked Linley down in a
public-house in Scotland Street; they entered a backyard, and saw him
sitting in a parlour. Then with great difficulty Hallam induced Crookes to
shoot. The bullet entered Linley's head and he died some time afterwards.
The two murderers ran off and escaped, and the coroner's jury was obliged
to return a verdict of "wilful murder against some person or persons
unknown." Hallam got £7 10s. for the deed. He confessed that he did not
know Linley, and that he owed him no personal grudge. He took his life
merely because he was injuring the trade. Hallam's evidence was confirmed
by Crookes, and the evidence of both by Broadhead. The revelations made by
the latter were what really brought home to the public mind the strength,
the rigour, the unscrupulousness of the trade organisations. Under promise
of a certificate he confessed not only to the murder of Linley, but to
the destruction of machinery, the blowing up of houses, the mutilation,
or attempted mutilation, of whole families. "I hired Dennis Clark," he
said, "for £3 or £5, to blow up Hellewells." He owned that he had paid a
large sum to blow up the house of a certain Parker, and £19 for blowing
up Reaney's engine-house; and he admitted many more acts of the same
kind. Moreover, he admitted that he had arranged many of the outrages
with the secretaries of other unions--one, Bromhead, secretary of the
Pen and Pocket Blade Grinders', and William Hides and William Skidmore,
secretaries of the Saw-handle Makers' and of the Jobbing Grinders'. He
even confessed that he had written letters to the newspapers, denouncing,
as "infamous deeds" and "hellish deeds," the very acts that he had himself
instigated and paid for. The outrages were very varied in character, some
being merely cases of rattening--that is, preventing a man from working
by spoiling his tools or machinery; others being cases of injury to the
person, or of the destruction of premises. The most common form of these
grosser outrages was to hang a canister of gunpowder in the chimney of the
obnoxious workman or master, or to fling a canister of powder into the
fire through the window. In other cases, as in that of Linley, shooting
was resorted to. The evidence of Broadhead and others revealed the whole
system in its full details; and disclosures of the same kind, scarcely
less terrible, were made before commissioners who sat at Manchester.
Other proceedings of the trades' unions, which attracted much attention
during the present year, were those connected with the strike of the
London tailors, and of the engine-drivers on the London and Brighton
Railway. The former began on the 28th of April and lasted for several
months. In August, ten of the working tailors were indicted at the Central
Criminal Court for a misdemeanour in "conspiring together, by unlawful
ways, contrivances, and stratagems, to impoverish Henry Poole, George
Wolmershausen, and certain other persons, in their trade and business, in
restraint of trade, and the freedom of personal action." In the course of
the trial the public learnt many facts about the system of "picketing,"
which was a common device of workmen on strike towards workmen who would
not join them. One witness said, "On the 3rd of May I saw over 200
opposite Mr. Stohwasser's shop in Conduit Street. The general conduct of
the persons acting as pickets was the following and hissing workmen who
had not struck on leaving their work in the evening. They were called
cowards, and by other offensive names. That was the general conduct of
the pickets from time to time. The pickets also used to resort to certain
public-houses--ten or a dozen--which they called committee-rooms. I have
seen them meet there early in the morning, and then go on picketing."
Another witness, a pensioned sergeant of police, said that he had seen
customers go to shops in carriages, and the pickets hang about the
carriages until the customers went away. Much evidence was given of a
similar character, showing that, although no outrages like the Sheffield
outrages were committed, the union had used its forces to prevent
obnoxious workmen, by threats, abusive language, and other annoyances,
from working at their trade. Baron Bramwell, who presided at the trial,
laid down the law on the matter very clearly. He said that the common law
of the land made it a criminal offence for two or more persons to conspire
by threats, intimidation, or molestation, to deter or influence another
in the employment of his industry, talents, or capital. On the other
hand, an Act of 1859 declared that "no workman, merely by reason of his
endeavouring peaceably, and in a reasonable manner, and without threat
or intimidation, direct or indirect, to persuade others from working or
ceasing to work, should be guilty of an offence under the former Act
of Parliament." After some deliberation, the jury found the leading
defendants guilty, but strongly recommended them to mercy on the ground of
the obscurity of the law; and a similar verdict was returned immediately
afterwards in a case of some more of the tailors. The judge, however, did
not wish the conviction to be more than a warning, and the defendants were
released on entering into their own recognisances to come up for judgment
when called upon.
In the case of the engine-drivers' strike, the dispute ended by the
directors conceding most of the points in dispute, and the grave public
inconvenience that had been feared was happily avoided. Another strike,
however, took place in the same month of March, which, though it was not
immediately successful, was the beginning of a movement that within a few
years acquired national importance. This was a strike of agricultural
labourers in Buckinghamshire, rising in revolt against the system that
allowed a family to starve on nine shillings a week. It was not, however,
till some years later that the agricultural labourers became organised and
succeeded in obtaining their rights.
This year was memorable for various distressing accidents, some of them
destructive only of property, others grievously destructive of life. Her
Majesty's Theatre in London was burnt down; and not only was the building
itself, the scene of many operatic triumphs during seventy-five years,
destroyed, but the music library with all its priceless manuscripts of
Handel, Rossini, and the rest, perished. But more lamentable than this
was the memorable ice accident in the Regent's Park, London, on the 15th
of January. There was a severe frost, and the ice on the Ornamental Water
was crowded with skaters. Suddenly it began to part away from the bank,
and for a moment the skaters found themselves supported by a floating
sheet of ice. Almost instantly this broke up and two hundred persons were
in the water. It need only be added that, in spite of all the efforts of
the bystanders and of the Humane Society's men, more than forty persons
were drowned. The depth of the water was afterwards reduced in accordance
with the recommendation of the coroner's jury. Before the year ended,
other accidents as startling, though happily not so widely destructive of
life, took place. An explosion of gunpowder at the Faversham Powder Mills,
in the month of December, blew eleven men into the air; a still more
frightful explosion of nitro-glycerine, at Newcastle, killed five men, and
showed that the destructive power of modern chemical invention is liable
to nullify all measures of safety that can be taken to counteract it; and
a fire that took place in March at Accrington, by which nine children
were burnt alive in their schoolroom, added an unprecedented element of
horror to the catalogue of accidents.
There was, however, as if to compensate for these darker facts, an unusual
amount of gaiety imported into England during the summer months by the
arrival of certain distinguished foreign visitors. The Belgian volunteers
came over, more than a thousand strong, and were entertained in a very
fraternal manner by their English brethren. The Viceroy of Egypt came, and
was fêted by the richer classes of England with considerable expenditure
and effect. But his star paled before the greater glories of a visitor who
arrived when the Viceroy had been a few days in London--no less a person
than the Commander of the Faithful himself. Britain is so much an Asiatic
power, and has under her sway so many millions of Mohammedans, that it
was excusable for her to make the most of her opportunity of welcoming
the Sultan of Turkey, the recognised head of all those who profess the
orthodox Mussulman faith. All questions as to the real character of the
man and of his government were lost sight of by the London public in the
contemplation of his retinue, his jewels, his swarthy complexion, and the
white Arab that he rode. He was bandied about from dinner to opera, from
opera to ball; the days were filled with reviews, and processions, and
fêtes. The Lord Mayor gave him a ball at the Guildhall; the Secretary for
India spent £10,000 out of the revenues of India upon a single evening's
entertainment at the India Office. But the noblest and most creditable
display attempted in his honour was the naval review at Spithead. Fifteen
ironclads and sixteen unarmoured ships, with sixteen gunboats, formed a
mighty avenue, through which the royal yacht, bearing her Majesty and the
Sultan, the Prince of Wales, and other great personages, passed, amid
deafening salutes. Only one thing was wanting to complete the Sultan's
full enjoyment of the scene. A strong north-easter was blowing all the
time, and, by common consent of the staff of his Majesty, the spectacle of
the naval review proved rather impressive than pleasant. The Sultan left
England on the 23rd of July, after a visit of twelve days.
The year 1867 was a time of profound peace in Europe, except so far as it
was disturbed by revolutionary movements which had for their object the
overthrow of the Papal Government, and which collapsed with the defeat
of Garibaldi at Mentana. Besides the consummation of the failure of his
costly experiment in Mexico, a new mortification befell the Emperor of
the French this year in connection with the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. Yet
he continued to put the best face upon everything, to claim increasing
influence for Napoleonic ideas, and to credit his foreign policy with
success in all directions. Justly indeed might he declare--in the speech
delivered at the opening of the Chambers on February 14th--that "the voice
of France had influence enough to arrest the conqueror at the gates of
Vienna." But when, in the "Livre Jaune" (the "Yellow Book," containing the
usual annual exposition of the views of the French Government on foreign
policy), the recall of the French troops from Mexico was said to have been
"resolved upon in the full plenitude of our liberty of action,"--when it
was intimated that "anything having the character of external pressure
could only have placed us in the position, despite ourselves, of having
to prolong a state of things which we should wish to abridge,"--when he
said that "the Government of the United States understood that want of
conciliation would only have prolonged the occupation [of Mexico], and
embittered relations which, for the welfare of both countries, should
remain friendly,"--these brave words could not hide from the keen-witted
politicians of France the real nature of the pusillanimous surrender they
were intended to disguise. Still less could the truth be hidden when the
unfortunate Maximilian, dissuaded by his followers from abdication, was
taken prisoner and ignominiously shot (June 19, 1867). Many keen observers
prophesied that the Second Empire was nearing its end.
[Illustration: SKATING DISASTER IN REGENT'S PARK, LONDON. (_See p._ 459.)]
The Emperor formally opened the Paris International Exhibition on the
1st of April. Two days before, a question had been discussed in the
North German Parliament which might easily have rekindled another war in
Europe. The discussion bore on the negotiations, then first divulged,
that had been proceeding for some time between the Emperor Napoleon and
the King of Holland for the cession of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg to
France. The King of Holland, as ruler of Limburg and Luxemburg, had
voted on the side of Prussia in the memorable division of the 14th of
June, 1866; Count Bismarck had therefore no excuse for seizing Luxemburg
as he did Hanover and Hesse-Cassel. When the war was over, and the
organisation of the new North German Bund was being gone on with, the
King of Holland expressed his desire that neither Limburg nor Luxemburg
should be included in the new Bund. To this Prussia acceded, yet retained
her garrison in Luxemburg. Such a possession as the Grand Duchy,
separated by Belgian territory from his Dutch dominions, and interposed
between two powerful States the relations between which were continually
becoming more perilous and inflammable, was productive of more anxiety
than profit to the King of Holland; and could he have quietly ceded it
to France, for a consideration, nothing would have pleased him better.
It came to this, that the King of Holland declared himself ready to
sell Luxemburg to France, if the consent both of the population and of
Prussia could be first obtained. But it was quite another thing to gain
the consent of Prussia. The King of Holland had no sooner given to the
Prussian Government an intimation of the contemplated cession, than the
matter was debated in the North German Parliament, and warmly, not to
say angrily, canvassed in newspapers, in streets, and in houses, through
the length and breadth of Germany. It was an intolerable thought to men
who had just won so large a measure of national unity, and were full of
pride and exultation in the retrospect, that an old German land, which
had formerly given a line of emperors to Germany, should pass under the
power of France. The negotiation respecting Luxemburg, had it now been
transferred from the Hague to Berlin, must, considering the excitement
of German feeling, have become acrimonious, and would probably have
ended in war. For this the Emperor, who was engaged in plans for the
re-organisation of the French army, and the introduction of a new weapon,
was not as yet prepared; he therefore abandoned the notion of purchasing
Luxemburg, forbore to open direct negotiations with Berlin, and called in
the assistance of the neutral Powers. It was arranged on the initiative of
the Russian Government that the King of Holland, in his capacity of Grand
Duke, should be invited by Britain, Prussia, Austria, Italy, and Belgium,
to propose a Conference, to be held in London, for the settlement of the
Luxemburg question. The King of Holland did so. Representatives of France
and Prussia also, as well as the Powers above mentioned, were sent to the
Conference, which held its first meeting in London on the 7th of May,
1867. The nature of the work to be done was pretty generally understood
before the Conference met, and its deliberations were soon over. On the
18th of May a treaty was signed, by which it was stipulated that Luxemburg
should remain, as before, under the rule of the House of Orange-Nassau,
without any political connection with Holland, but that it should be
for the future a neutral State, its neutrality being guaranteed by the
Powers that were signatories to the treaty, with the exception of Belgium,
itself a neutral kingdom. In accordance with its acquired character of
neutrality, the capital of the Grand Duchy was to cease to be a fortified
town; its fortifications were to be razed within a specified time; and the
Prussian troops were to be withdrawn after the ratifications of the treaty
had been exchanged. In this way the question was equitably and honourably
settled without war, thanks to the diplomacy of Lord Stanley, who had
actively promoted the project of a Conference. Earlier in the year he had
written to Lord Malmesbury that unless the Prussian garrison was withdrawn
from Luxemburg "Napoleon must fight."
Elsewhere Englishmen observed with satisfaction the healing of old
sores. Austria, with her armies shattered and her prestige departed,
burdened with debt, and distracted by the demands of a dozen different
nationalities, displayed in this year that wonderful tenacity of life
which she has before exhibited on many a historic emergency. In Count
Beust, the late Saxon Minister, the Emperor found a statesman of great
capacity, astuteness, and perseverance, whom he appointed to the post of
Foreign Minister at the end of October, 1866. At that time dismemberment
was openly talked of; for the difficulties of the monarchy were so great
that no one could see his way out of them. The other chief Ministers
were Prince Esterhazy and Count Belcredi, the authors of what was called
the policy of "inhibition," under which, until a common and equal
representation of the whole monarchy could be devised, the Constitution
of February, 1861, giving a Parliament or Reichsrath to Western Austria,
was suspended; the central power governed absolutely; and parliamentary
life throughout the empire was confined within the walls of the
provincial Diets. Hungary still held aloof from the rest of the empire,
like a half severed limb, having its own Parliament for local affairs,
but unrepresented in the imperial councils, and sullenly obeying the
administrative and executive dispositions of the central power. Count
Beust placed two leading political aims before him--to effect a compromise
with Hungary, and to revive constitutional and parliamentary life in
Western Austria. To bring about the first, it was necessary to come to an
understanding with M. Déak and the party which he represented, since he,
above all other living men, possessed the confidence of the Hungarians.
Now M. Déak was firmly convinced that a system of complete dualism between
Austria and Hungary would alone meet the exigencies of the case--a system
under which, certain common affairs being reserved and separately provided
for, all Hungarian affairs should be managed by a separate Administration,
appointed indeed by the Emperor, but responsible to the Hungarian
Parliament. At the opening of this Parliament, on the 19th of November,
1866, an imperial rescript was read, holding out hopes of a responsible
Ministry for Hungary, and of concessions to the views of M. Déak. The
plans of Belcredi, who desired to convoke an "Extraordinary Reichsrath,"
representing all the other nationalities along with Austria, but excluding
Hungary, were swept away; and he himself was compelled to resign soon
afterwards. Count Beust was then made Prime Minister. A deputation from
the Hungarian Diet, headed by Count Andrassy, arrived in Vienna about
the end of January, and proceeded to negotiate with Count Beust and the
other Austrian Ministers respecting the terms of the compromise. Early
in February, 1867, the Emperor appointed Count Andrassy his Minister
President for Hungary, and entrusted him with the formation of a Hungarian
Ministry. At last, on the 17th of February, appeared the imperial and
royal rescript, restoring to Hungary her full parliamentary rights as
they had existed before 1848. The terms of the compromise between Austria
and Hungary were settled in the following manner:--"Common affairs" were
defined to include the foreign policy of the empire, with its diplomatic
representation abroad, and a joint army under the command of the Emperor.
Both parts of the Empire were to contribute proportionately to the cost of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of the army; and this proportion was
afterwards fixed, somewhat unjustly, at 70 per cent, for Austria and 30
per cent, for Hungary. Hungary was likewise to contribute to the payment
of the interest of the State debt. All international treaties were to
receive the sanction of both Legislatures. All other affairs requiring
a joint consideration, such as the Customs duties, indirect taxes, and
the currency, were to be regulated by treaties, subject to the approval
of both moieties of the realm. On the 8th of June a memorable pageant
graced the streets, the noble river, and the ancient cathedral of the
double capital of Hungary. On that day the Emperor Francis Joseph, who had
never yet received the crown of St. Stephen, was solemnly crowned King
of Hungary in the cathedral of Buda, amidst the joyful acclamations of a
reconciled people.
So passed an uneventful recess. The necessity for sending an armed force
to Abyssinia, in order to compel the Sovereign of that country to release
a number of British subjects, made it advisable for the Government of
Lord Derby to convene Parliament for a short winter Session, in order
that the exact state of the question might be explained to both Houses,
their approval of the expedition secured, and the grant of the necessary
advances obtained from the House of Commons. Parliament accordingly was
summoned to meet on the 19th of November for the despatch of business, and
was opened by commission. With regard to the legislative labours of the
Session, Reform Bills for Scotland and Ireland were promised, which should
assimilate the franchises of those countries to those recently established
in England, and also measures on public schools and elementary education.
On the motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, £2,000,000 were voted
for the Abyssinian expedition, the total cost of which, unless the Emperor
Theodore should succumb, and give up his prisoners without fighting, was
estimated by Government at about £3,500,000. To meet this expenditure,
the House of Commons voted the addition of a penny to the income tax,
and sanctioned the payment of the Indian troops engaged out of Indian
revenues. Objections were raised to the expedition from various quarters,
but they were sustained with little earnestness. In the Commons it was
said that the Ministers had involved the country in war without keeping
Parliament duly informed of the progress of the difficulty in its earlier
stages; in the Upper House, a noble lord predicted failure, and said that
for the army to keep up its communications with the sea after having
penetrated into the highlands of Abyssinia would be found impossible.
However, the general feeling, both in Parliament and in the country, went
along with Government in thinking that all peaceful modes of settlement
had been exhausted, and that there remained only the alternative of an
appeal to arms.
In one of the debates in the House of Commons respecting relations
with Abyssinia, a singular and really strange fact came to light. Mr.
Bernal Osborne and Colonel Sykes drew the attention of the House to a
certain letter addressed by King Theodore to Queen Victoria several years
before, to which no answer had been sent. It now appeared from the papers
published in the Blue Books that Theodore's resentment on account of this
slight had much influenced his later conduct. A lively debate ensued.
Mr. Layard, who had been Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Lord
Russell at the time (February, 1863) when Theodore's letter reached the
Foreign Office, gave the best explanation that he could of the neglect,
but it was a very lame one. He said that he himself (owing to some
division of duties between himself and the permanent Under-Secretary,
Mr. Hammond) had never seen the letter; but that when, after a delay of
eighteen months, the despatch of Consul Cameron, covering the King's
letter, was looked for and found, it appeared that it had a minute written
on it by Lord Russell, directing the correspondence to be sent to the
India Office, "which was the usual course taken in all matters relating
to Abyssinia." It was found afterwards, first, that Theodore's anger was
caused by the writings of the missionaries, in which they had alluded, one
to the King's mother's history in disrespectful terms, and the other by
reflecting on his own conduct; secondly, that Consul Cameron had returned
to Abyssinia against the King's injunction without taking back with him an
answer to the letter addressed to the Queen.
But what became of the letter after it had reached the India Office?
The answer was given by Colonel Sykes, who had obtained his information
from the officials at the India Office. This letter, on which the most
momentous consequences hung--in which the ruler of the one Christian
nation in Africa entreated the Christian Queen of a Christian nation to
co-operate with him in his endeavours to drive the encroaching, cruel,
bigoted Turks from his ancestral domains--this letter, on reaching the
India Office, appears never to have passed beyond the notice of the chief
clerk. It was supposed that the letter had been already answered from the
Foreign Office, and so no action was taken about it. Years passed away
and still Theodore received no answer to his letter. One may conceive
what interpretations, what crude reflections and deductions, would sweep
through the soul of a passionate semi-barbarian monarch at finding the
letter into which he had thrown all the rough sincerity of his heart
treated with silent contempt.
"The postage of that letter," said Colonel Sykes, "will cost us five
millions."