THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).
The Elementary Education Bill--Mr. Forster--The existing
State of Education--Deficiencies of the System--The Union
and the League--Mr. Forster and the Cabinet--Mr. Forster's
Speech--"Good Schools"--Undenominational Inspection--The
Conscience Clause--Voluntary Schools and Compulsion--The School
Boards--Districts and Fees--Powers of School Boards--The
Religious Difficulty--Attendance--Mr. Forster's Peroration--Mr.
Dixon's Amendment--Mr. Forster's Reply--Mr. Winterbotham's
Speech and the Churchmen--Mr. Dixon's Motion withdrawn--Partial
Concessions--The Cowper-Temple Amendment--Amendment moved by
Mr. Richards--Mr. Forster's admirable Conduct--Changes in the
Bill--It becomes Law--Outrage in Greece--Seizure of Tourists by
Greek Brigands--Negotiations for their Ransom--The Brigands demand
an Amnesty--Intrigues of the Opposition--The Greek Government
determines on a _coup de main_--Mr. Erskine's Negotiations--The
Troops move on Oropus--Murder of the Prisoners--Indignation
in England--Army and Navy Estimates--The Budget--Other
Legislation--Disaster in the Eastern Seas--Obituary of the Year.
Two days after the introduction of the Irish Land Bill, on the 17th of
February, Mr. Forster, the Vice-President of the Council, brought in his
Elementary Education Bill, a measure which, fair as were its opening
prospects, was destined ultimately to become far more of a bone of
contention in England than many Irish questions. Mr. Forster had kept his
secret admirably. It was, of course, known that Government had pledged
themselves to deal with the Education Question during the Session, and
that the construction of an Education Bill had been long ago entrusted
to Mr. Forster. As the Radical member for Bradford, Mr. Forster had many
times proved his Liberal principles, and had already gained the respect
and attention of the House before taking office. His vigorous character,
his capacity for hard work, and his known ability seemed to point him
out as specially fitted to deal with the vexed and intricate problem
of National Education. But how was he going to deal with it? What line
were Government, as represented by him, about to take up with regard
to the great questions of free education, compulsion, and State aid to
denominational schools? The London newspapers guessed in vain. No one
out of the Cabinet had any idea of the provisions of the Bill before the
night of the 17th of February, when Mr. Forster disclosed his scheme to a
crowded House. His speech, as a speech, was perhaps a greater success than
any he had achieved before. Perfect mastery of his subject gave a freedom
and self-possession to his manner in which it had sometimes been wanting,
and his whole demeanour was that of a man who had gone to the bottom of a
great question, and who felt himself to be the most competent person to
lead the opinion of the House and the country to a satisfactory decision
with regard to it.
Before describing the means by which Government hoped to effect a radical
change in the educational condition of the country, it may be as well to
glance over the system of National Education as it existed at the time of
Mr. Forster's speech. The whole system of National Education in England
before the Act of 1870 was a matter of voluntary effort. In bygone ages,
Greek philosophy had held the education of children to be one of the
most essential duties of the State as such--a duty which could not be
relegated to private hands, and which the State was bound to conduct with
reference to the general welfare of the community. In more modern times
Prussia had recognised this political view of education, and had made
the training of every Prussian child a State matter. In England alone,
with her over-fondness for self-government, and her love for the system
of local provision for local needs, voluntaryism remained intact; and
the education of the poor was left wholly at the discretion and in the
hands of their richer and more intelligent neighbours. Voluntary effort
must come first; then, indeed, State help would follow in the shape of
building grants or annual grants, coupled with the condition of Government
inspection; but in all cases the help given by the State had to be called
forth by the prior voluntary action of some particular individual or some
particular neighbourhood. It had long been felt that the results of this
system were most unsatisfactory and inadequate; and as the Reform question
advanced, and political enfranchisement had to be yielded step by step
to the working classes, the gross and widespread ignorance prevailing
among the lower orders began to force itself more and more strongly
upon the attention of the country. Mr. Lowe only expressed the general
feeling in a bitter and cynical way when, after the passing of the Reform
Bill of 1867, he pointed out the power that it had conferred upon the
working-man, and uttered the famous phrase, "Let us educate our masters!"
The amount of educational destitution existing in England in 1870 may
be roughly gathered from the following statistics. From the Census of
1851 it appeared that about one-fourth of the population of England
were of an age to go to school--that is to say, from the ages of three
to thirteen or four to fourteen. In 1870 the population of England was
twenty-one millions, so that about five millions and a half of children
would be of what is technically called the school age. Of these, 23 per
cent. had to be allowed for as absent from school from allowable causes,
such as sickness; half a million were at school for the upper or middle
classes; and rather less than two millions and a half of the remaining
three and a half millions were actually at school. There remained about
one million one hundred thousand children who were not at school at all.
Nor did this represent by any means the whole extent of the deficiency.
Of the two and a half millions represented as actually at school, only a
very small proportion indeed could possibly derive real benefit from the
education offered them, because, as was abundantly proved by statistics,
far the greater number of children were removed from school before their
twelfth year--that is to say, before the age when the average child,
much more the child of poor and uneducated parents, becomes capable of
anything like lasting and profitable learning. This evil of short-lived
and irregular attendance had been increasing during the years preceding
1870 rather than diminishing, and it was admitted on all hands to form one
of the most serious elements of the educational difficulty. With regard
to local deficiencies, especially to the educational needs of our large
towns, let Mr. Forster speak for himself. "It is calculated," he said,
"that in Liverpool the number of children between five and thirteen who
ought to receive an elementary education is 80,000; but, as far as we can
make out, 20,000 of them attend no school whatever, while at least another
20,000 attend schools where they get an education not worth having.
In Manchester--that is, in the borough of Manchester, not including
Salford--there are about 65,000 children who might be at school; and of
this number 16,000 go to no school at all.... As a Yorkshireman I am sorry
to say that, from what I hear, Leeds appears to be as bad as Liverpool;
and so also, I fear, is Birmingham."
The educational need, then, could scarcely be denied, though extreme
Conservatives, like Lord Robert Montagu, might attempt to palliate it.
But the question of "how is this need to be supplied?" admitted of very
different answers; and opinion was indeed divided into at least two
hostile camps with regard to it, represented by the National Education
Union and the famous Birmingham League. The avowed object of both was "to
bring a good education within the reach of every child in the country."
But the Union proposed to accomplish this by means of the existing
system, supplemented and reformed; the League, on the contrary, aimed
at the destruction of the existing system, and at the gradual erection
of something wholly different upon its ruins. The Union desired, above
all things, to keep education in England denominational and founded upon
religious teaching; while the League asserted strongly that education
ought to be wholly undenominational, that State aid should only be given
to secular instruction, and that religion should be provided by the
voluntary efforts of all religious sects, the Church of England included.
The doctrines of the League were supported inside the House of Commons by
men like Mr. Mundella, Mr. Dixon, and Mr. Fawcett; and outside it, by the
bulk of the Dissenting communities, who saw in the programme of the League
a protest against the undisputed supremacy of the Church in education. On
the other hand, the sequel showed that the partisans of the more moderate
policy advocated by the Union had Mr. Forster himself in the main on their
side, a large majority (both Liberals and Conservatives) in the House, and
the whole influence and power of the Church of England. The Church talked
of her "claims," and pointed triumphantly to the work done by her, and by
her alone, in the cause of education; while the Dissenters complained of
grievances, accused the clergy of intentional violations of the Conscience
Clause then existing, and professed to regard their zeal for education as
a mere cloak for widespread projects of priestly aggrandisement. Between
these contending factions Mr. Forster had to take his stand, and to frame
a Bill which should if possible satisfy both.
Mr. Forster had set about his great undertaking in that spirit of
conscientious thoroughness which characterised him through life. From
his well-known biography by Sir Wemyss Reid, we gather that so early as
the 21st of October, 1869, he had submitted to the Cabinet an exhaustive
memorandum, in which the four ideals of the Birmingham League, the
National Education Union, Mr. Bruce's Bill of 1868, and Mr. Lowe's plan
for supplementing voluntary effort by compulsory rates were submitted to
the most searching criticism. He decided that Mr. Lowe's scheme was the
best of the four, but suggested that it might be strengthened in various
ways, and concluded--"In venturing to submit the above suggestions, I
may be allowed to add my conviction that in dealing with this Education
Question boldness is the only safe policy; that any measure which does not
profess to be complete will be a certain failure; but that we shall have
support from all sides if, on the one hand, we acknowledge and make use of
present educational efforts, and, on the other hand, admit the duty of the
central Government to supplement these efforts by means of local agency."
His views found favour with the Ministry, but meanwhile the Birmingham
League had begun to stir, and Mr. Forster was much annoyed by rumours that
the Cabinet was of divided mind, and that the measure would in consequence
be postponed. On the 6th of December we find him writing to Mr. Glyn, the
Ministerial Whip, an earnest protest against procrastination. He received
a fairly reassuring reply; nevertheless there were dissensions in the
Cabinet. Mr. Gladstone was immersed in Irish land tenure, and Lord De
Grey, the President of the Council, had to bring considerable pressure
to bear so as to prevent the measure from being shelved. In the end Mr.
Forster's memorandum was practically adopted, though his proposals for
compulsion were made less stringent, and his provision that the aid given
to already existing schools should be confined to secular education was,
somewhat injudiciously, toned down.
We cannot do better than let Mr. Forster describe his Bill mainly
in his own words. The first problem, then, to be solved, said the
Vice-President of the Council, was this: "How can we cover the country
with good schools?" The answer to this must be influenced by three
considerations--considerations of the duties of parents to their children,
of the duty of Government to the taxpayer, and of the duty of every
educational reformer to those who were already labouring in the cause
of education, and to the system which they at great cost had built up
and supported. That is to say, "in solving this problem, there must
be, consistently with the attainment of our object, the least possible
expenditure of public money, the utmost endeavour not to injure existing
and efficient schools, and the most careful absence of all encouragement
to parents to neglect their children." The principles upon which the
present Bill is founded, he continued, "are two in number--legal enactment
that there shall be efficient schools everywhere throughout the kingdom;
and compulsory provision of such schools, if and where needed, but not
unless proved to be needed. So much for the principles of the Bill.
Coming now to the actual provisions by which they are to be enforced, it
will suggest itself to the minds of all that there must be to begin with
a system of organisation throughout the country. We take care that the
country shall be properly mapped and divided so that its wants may be duly
ascertained. For this we take present known divisions and declare them
to be school districts, so that upon the passing of this Bill there will
be no portion of England or Wales not included in one school district
or another. We have taken the boundaries of boroughs as regards towns,
and parishes as regards the country--and when I say parish, I mean the
civil parish, and not the ecclesiastical district. With regard to the
metropolis, we have come to the conclusion, subject to the counsel and
advice of the metropolitan members, that the best districts we can take in
the metropolis are, where they exist, the school districts already formed
for workhouse schools; and where they do not exist, the boundaries of the
vestries. Having thus got our districts, our next duty is to ascertain
their educational condition, and for that purpose we take power to collect
returns which will show us what in each district is the number of schools,
of scholars, and of children requiring education. We also take power to
send down inspectors and officers to test the quality of the schools and
of the education given in them. Then if in any one of these districts we
find the elementary education to be sufficient in quantity, efficient
in quality, and suitable in character, that is to say, hampered by no
religious or other restriction to which parents can reasonably object,
we leave that district alone; and we shall continue to leave it alone so
long as it fulfils those conditions. And I may as well state that for the
purpose of ascertaining the condition of a district we count all schools
that will receive our inspectors, whether private or public, whether aided
or unaided by Government, whether secular or denominational."
Here Mr. Forster, before describing the means by which districts
insufficiently supplied with schools were to be sufficiently supplied,
explained an important change in the character of Government
inspection to be introduced. "Hitherto," he said, "the inspection has
been denominational; we propose that it shall no longer be so." The
reasons for this change were obvious. In the first place, an invidious
distinction was kept up between Church inspectors and inspectors of other
denominations--the former alone having the right to inquire into the
teaching of doctrines in any school. Thus both sides were in many cases
aggrieved. Clergymen complained that their school children were subjected
to examination in religious doctrine by an inspector whose religious views
differed from their own, while a Wesleyan or an Independent school could
not be subjected to any such examination at all. On the other hand, the
Dissenters were justly irritated by a distinction that seemed to imply
that their peculiar tenets were not, and could not be, recognised by the
State in the same way as the doctrines of the Church. The denominational
character of the inspection also very much complicated the whole system of
inspection, introducing many practical difficulties into the division of
inspecting-districts, and so on. In consideration of all these objections,
and believing that the existing system was favourable neither to religion
in general nor to the Church cause in particular, "we propose," said Mr.
Forster, "that after a limited period one of the conditions of public
elementary schools shall be, that they shall admit any inspector without
any denominational provision."
The next provision of the Bill concerned the framing of a stringent
conscience clause to be accepted by every elementary denominational school
before public money would be granted to it. There had been at one time
strong opposition on the part of a fraction of the Church party to any
conscience clause whatever. It became evident, however, several months
before the introduction of the Education Bill, that public opinion, both
lay and clerical, was strengthening in its favour, and the adoption of
a conscience clause into the programme of the National Education Union
virtually settled the matter. The Conscience Clause in the Bill of 1870
ran as follows:--
"No scholar shall be required, as a condition of being admitted into or
of attending or of enjoying all the benefits of the school, to attend or
to abstain from attending any Sunday school, or any place of religious
worship, or to learn any such catechism or religious formulary, or to be
present at any such lesson or instruction or observance as may have been
objected to on religious grounds, by the parent of the scholar sending his
objection in writing to the managers or principal teacher of the school,
or one of them."
By far the most practical objection that had been made to a conscience
clause had been that it would be in reality of little or no use in any
case where the clergyman or other manager of a school should be bent on
setting it aside. "That, however," said Mr. Forster, "is not the view that
I have formed from my personal experience. In the first place, I do not
know any case in which our present conscience clause has been applied in
which it has not been found thoroughly effective; but our new clause will
be different in this important respect, that whereas the old clause was
applicable only in some cases to building grants, the new one will apply
to all grants, and especially to all annual grants. It is perfectly clear
in its operation, and I am quite sure that no manager of a school will
risk the loss of the annual grant by violating its conditions."
[Illustration: MR. W. E. FORSTER. (_From a Photograph by Russell & Sons._)]
Mr. Forster went on to state that every opportunity would be afforded
to the upholders of the voluntary system to do what was necessary for
themselves, and thus avoid the interference of Government. "We have said,"
he continued, "that we must have provision for public elementary schools.
The first question then is, by whom is it to be made? Now here for a time
we shall test the voluntary zeal of the district. Not only do we not
neglect voluntary help, but, on condition of respecting the rights of
parents and the rights of conscience, we welcome it. To see, then, whether
voluntary help will be forthcoming, we give a year to test the zeal and
willingness of any volunteers who may be disposed to help; but we ought
not to give longer time, because we cannot afford to wait." If therefore
the educational need had not been met in any given district by voluntary
effort at the expiration of the year of grace, the State would step in
and supply the deficiency. The next point was one of great importance.
The Bill admitted the principle of compulsion, so often attacked as
un-English; and in certain districts and under certain conditions,
elementary education was in future to be enforced. It will be seen that
Mr. Forster was afterwards obliged to defend himself from the charge of
timidity and half-heartedness in this matter of compulsion. Having gone
so far, it was asked, why not go farther; and having once admitted the
justice of the principle of compulsion, why not make it the general law of
the land, instead of allowing its application to depend upon the caprice
of individual school boards who might adopt it here and there? Yet Mr.
Forster was not to blame, but the Cabinet, though he loyally held his
peace and never let it appear that he was defending a principle to which
his private convictions were opposed.
The machinery of school boards--the newest and most prominent feature in
the Bill--by means of which education was to be provided by the State
where voluntaryism failed, had next to be explained to the House. For
Government did not propose to educate the nation by means of an enormous
and omnipotent central department. This would indeed have been un-English,
for local action and self-government have been throughout English history
the mainstays of English life. Local resources were still to supply local
wants, but they were to be made to do this in a far more effective,
systematic, and public manner than heretofore. "Voluntary local action,"
said Mr. Forster, "has failed, therefore our hope is to invoke the help
of municipal organisation. Where we have proved the educational need, we
supply it by local administration--that is, by means of rates, aided by
money voted by Parliament, expended under local management, with central
inspection and control.... Undoubtedly this proposal will affect a large
portion of the kingdom. I believe it will affect almost all the towns and
a great part of the country."
With regard to the area of the school districts, Mr. Forster had already
indicated the boundaries established by the Bill. In the provinces, the
parish was to be looked upon as the unit of area--Government of course
reserving to themselves the power of throwing two or more parishes
together if necessary--rather than the union, as being smaller, more
convenient, and freer from practical difficulties. In London the existing
school districts were to be taken, and, where these did not exist, the
boundaries of vestries. And in every school district where the voluntary
system had proved inadequate to meet the educational demand, a school
board was to be elected--that is to say, a body of responsible and
official persons, whose business it would be to provide sufficient and
suitable education for the whole district over which their power extended.
"But the next question that arises is--How are we to elect our school
boards in the provinces (London having been already provided with school
boards under a previous Bill), and whom are they to elect? Now first
who is to elect? Well, the electoral body we have chosen for the towns
is the town council. I do not think there can be much dispute upon that
point. In the country we have taken the best body we can find--the select
vestry where there is one, and a vestry where there is no select vestry.
Secondly--Whom are they to elect?" The answer to this was very simple.
The electors were to choose whom they thought fit without limitation of
choice; but there was to be a limit of numbers. The school board was to
consist of never less than three or more than twelve members. Mr. Forster
had come to the conclusion that it was not desirable to add _ex officio_
members to the board, thinking very rightly that "the very men fit to be
_ex officio_ members would come in with greater influence and almost equal
certainty if subjected to popular election." Nor were the boards to be
saddled with Government nominees--a proceeding that would make Government
responsible for the failures as well as the successes of any given board.
Government only reserved to themselves the rights of a final court of
appeal in any case where the work of the board was either carelessly
done or done in opposition to the spirit of the Act. In any such case
Government claimed a right to step in and manage the district for as long
as it thought fit.
The important question of school fees, important in one way to the poor
parent and in another to the taxpayer, came next to be considered.
Government, however, said Mr. Forster, had no intention of making
elementary education in England free. In the first place, such a change
could only be effected at the cost of a great sacrifice to the country--a
sacrifice of some six or seven hundred thousand pounds yearly--an amount
that it might fairly be calculated would be reached by the parents' pence
under the new scheme. And in the second place, supposing that the country
were ready to undertake the sacrifice, the framers of the Bill were, on
general principles, wholly averse from it. To relieve the parent of all
payment for his children's education would be, said Mr. Forster, to
weaken the sense of parental obligations in him, and to pauperise those
who had hitherto kept themselves free from the taint of pauperism. Some
provision, however, was to be made for extreme poverty, and real inability
to pay school fees was in no case to prove a bar to any child's education.
"We take two powers," said the speaker, "we give the school board power to
establish special free schools under special circumstances, which chiefly
apply to large towns, where, from the exceeding poverty of the district,
or for other very special reasons, they prove to the satisfaction of the
Government that such a school is needed and ought to be established.... We
also empower the school board to give free tickets to parents who, they
think, cannot really afford to pay for the education of their children;
and we take care that those free tickets shall have no stigma of pauperism
attached to them. We do not give up the school fees, and, indeed, we keep
to the present proportions--namely, of about one-third raised from the
parents, one-third out of the public taxes, and one-third out of local
funds. Where the local funds are not raised by voluntary subscription,
the rates will come into action." A question of rates is always, as Mr.
Forster went on to say, treading on delicate ground, but the future
education rate need alarm no one. Should it ever exceed threepence
in the pound--a most unlikely event--Government would step in with a
"very considerable extra grant out of the Parliamentary votes." And the
education rate would save the prison rate and the pauper rate, and might
thus prove the most hopeful and satisfactory of all economies.
With regard to the other powers to be granted to school boards, they were,
first of all, to be allowed the choice of alternative courses--either they
might meet the need of a particular district by providing extra schools
of their own, or they might supply it by assisting and extending existing
schools. But supposing they decided upon the latter alternative, they were
to exercise their right in no prejudiced or limited manner. "If they do
go on the principle of assisting, they must assist all schools on equal
terms. They may not pick out one particular denomination and say, 'We
shall assist you, but not the other.'" To this part of the Bill belonged
the afterwards famous 25th clause, by which school boards were enabled
to pay the fees of indigent children at denominational schools out of
the rates--a point that was attacked with equal ardour by the liberal
philosophers of the _Fortnightly Review_, the members of the Birmingham
League, the Dissenters generally, and all other advocates of secular
education, but the supposed iniquity of which was not discovered until
after the Bill had passed through committee. For these last Mr. Forster
held out no word of hope. Speaking of the restrictions that ought or ought
not to be laid upon school managers with regard to religion, he denied the
existence of any real religious difficulty at all, the great plea of the
secularists. Or rather, he held that there was a theoretical difficulty
that might occur to and perplex an honest man in his study, but no
practical difficulty that would affect the parents and children considered
by the Bill. The Bill decreed that no restriction was to be laid upon
school managers with regard to religion. If the neighbourhood that elected
them chose, they might leave religious teaching altogether alone, but they
certainly should not be forbidden, in any case, to teach or to explain
the Bible. "Now just look," said the speaker, "at the age of the children
with whom we have to deal. The great majority of them are probably under
ten years of age.... We want a good secular teaching for these children,
a good Christian training, and good schoolmasters. It may be said that as
these children can hardly be supposed to require doctrinal or dogmatic
teaching to any great extent, 'Why do you not then prescribe that there
should be no doctrinal teaching--why not, in the first place, prescribe
that there shall be no religious teaching at all?' Why do we not prescribe
that there shall be no religious teaching? Why, if we did so, out of the
religious difficulty we should come to an irreligious difficulty.... If we
are to prevent religious teaching altogether, we must say that the Bible
shall not be used in our schools at all. But would it not be a monstrous
thing that the book which, after all, is the foundation of the religion
we profess, should be the only book that was not allowed to be used in
our schools? It may be said that we ought to have no dogmatic teaching.
But how are we to prevent it? Are we to step in and say the Bible may be
read, but may not be explained? Are we to pick out Bible lessons with
the greatest care, in order that nothing of a doctrinal character may
be taught to the children?" A hard and thankless labour indeed, but one
which Government would undertake were it convinced that such was the wish
of the country. But it was convinced, on the contrary, that the country
wished no such thing; and in no case could such a matter be satisfactorily
undertaken or discharged by the central Government. In fact, the framers
of the Bill felt confident that the religious difficulty would turn out to
be one of words and theories only. "Get your school boards together," they
said; "give them the practical work to do of providing efficient secular
education, and you will see that at the same time they will find ways and
means of managing the religious education satisfactorily also. Put the
fiercest of controversialists to the practical handling of details, and he
will soon find that the imaginary parent possessed by an imaginary hatred
of all religion, or a stubborn and exclusive preference for one form of
religious teaching rather than another, is almost wholly the creature of
his own fancy; and that the so-called religious difficulty is a phantom
which vanishes before the open work-a-day atmosphere of facts."
Having now described the school districts, the school boards, and the
various minor arrangements connected with them, Mr. Forster came finally
to the important question of attendance. In other words, "Having got
our schools, how are we to get the children to come to them in anything
like sufficient numbers, and with anything like sufficient regularity?"
In his answer to this, Mr. Forster enlarged upon the direct compulsion
permitted by the Bill. The Short Time Acts, on which so many depended for
securing the attendance of children, would no doubt contribute greatly to
that object, and they might be so amended as to render them still more
effectual. But the difficulty could not be met by their aid alone, and
compulsory attendance was therefore to be resorted to, though as we said
before, only in a limited and partial degree. "What we do in the Act,"
said Mr. Forster, "is no more than this. We give power to the school
boards to frame by-laws for the compulsory attendance of all children
within their district from five to twelve. They must see that no parent is
under a penalty--which is restricted to 5s.--for not sending his child to
school if he can show reasonable excuse,--reasonable excuse being either
education elsewhere, or sickness, or some unavoidable cause, or there not
being a public elementary school within a mile. These by-laws are not to
come into operation unless they are approved by the Government, and unless
they have been laid on the table of this and the other House of Parliament
forty days and have not been dissented from."
Having thus described his Bill, with every detail of which he had shown
himself perfectly familiar, Mr. Forster concluded in words of genuine and
sincere enthusiasm, which could not but awaken the sympathy of all who
had listened to him:--
"Upon the speedy provision of elementary education depends our industrial
prosperity. It is of no use trying to give technical teaching to our
artisans without elementary education. Uneducated labourers--and many
of our labourers are utterly uneducated--are, for the most part,
unskilled labourers; and if we leave our work-folk any longer unskilled,
notwithstanding their strong sinews and determined energy, they will
become overmatched in the competition of the world. Upon this speedy
provision depends also, I fully believe, the good, the safe working of
our constitutional system. To its honour, Parliament has lately decided
that England shall in future be governed by popular government. I am
one of those who would not wait until the people were educated before I
would trust them with political power. If we had thus waited, we might
have waited long for education; but now that we have given them political
power, we must not wait any longer to give them education. There are
questions demanding answers, problems which must be solved, which ignorant
constituencies are ill fitted to solve. Upon this speedy provision
of education depends also our national power. Civilised communities
throughout the world are massing themselves together, each mass being
measured by its force; and if we are to hold our position among men of
our own race or among the nations of the world we must make up for the
smallness of our numbers by increasing the intellectual force of the
individual."
[Illustration: OFFICE OF THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, WHITEHALL.]
The short debate that followed was extremely flattering to Mr. Forster
personally. Liberal and Tory complimented the speech and the Bill,
regretting only that the framer should occupy what was nominally, at
least, a subordinate position in the Ministry, and should speak as the
Vice-President of the Council under its President, Lord de Grey, instead
of as "the responsible Minister of Public Instruction." Scarcely a
murmur of the coming struggle disturbed the amiability of the House, and
on the morning of the 18th of February the newspapers were full of Mr.
Forster and Mr. Forster's admirable Bill. For a while it seemed as if
the concessions of the Bill, and the conciliatory tone of its advocate,
had silenced both the League and the Nonconformists, until a series of
ominous articles in the _Daily News_ dispelled the illusion, and a cloud
of hostile talk and writing began to gather definitely round certain
portions of the proposed Act. By the time the second reading arrived, all
the world knew that the Government would find the passing of the measure
by no means a matter of such plain sailing as had seemed likely at first.
And the motion for the second reading was met, in fact, by a motion of Mr.
Dixon's (member for Birmingham and founder of the League), to the effect,
"That no measure for the elementary education of the people could afford
a permanent and satisfactory settlement which left the important question
of religious instruction to be determined by the local authorities." Mr.
Forster might well point out with some warmth that the success of such
an amendment at the present stage of matters could have no other effect
than to throw out the Bill and the Government. Such a question, he argued,
should be discussed in committee; only when approached in detail could the
religious difficulty be either satisfactorily debated or satisfactorily
settled. "Unsectarian education"--which, however, throughout he carefully
distinguished from secular education--he thought not at all difficult to
reach in practice, though extremely hard to define, and personally he
strongly supported it. But unsectarian education could never be attained
by definite and minute legislation. "Surely," he said, "the time will come
when we shall find out how we can agree better on these matters; when men
will discover that on the main questions of religion they agree, and that
they can teach them in common to their children. Shall we cut off from the
future all hope of such an agreement, and say that all those questions
which regulate our conduct in life and animate our hopes for the future
after death, which form for us the standard of right and wrong--shall
we say that all these are to be wholly excluded from our schools?... I
confess I have still in my veins the blood of my Puritan forefathers, and
I wonder to hear descendants of the Puritans talk of religion as if it
were the property of any class or condition of men. The English people
cling to the Bible, and no measure would be more unpopular than that which
should declare by Act of Parliament that the Bible shall be excluded from
the schools!" Cut the knot of the religious difficulty in this way, and
a far greater irreligious difficulty would be created. Instead of the
few individuals who might, were the Bill passed in its present form,
object to paying the school rate, multitudes would be found objecting to
an education from which religion was left out. The greater part of Mr.
Forster's speech consisted of an appeal on behalf of local government as
against central government. What the amendment proposed, he said, was to
force the central government to adopt one rigid line of policy, regardless
of all the varying circumstances and wishes of the different localities,
the result of which could only be to produce endless opposition and
heart-burning. Under the Bill the will of the majority in any given
neighbourhood would always take effect, whether that will was in favour of
secular or religious education. Only let the House set its face against
any abstract proposition like the present amendment. In committee would
be the place and time to discuss the several points as they arose, fairly
and calmly, and to take the sense of the House upon the religious question
detail by detail.
The second night of the debate upon the second reading was marked by an
effective and brilliant speech, in behalf of secular education, from Mr.
Winterbotham, the young Liberal and Nonconformist member for Stroud.
All the opinions and prejudices which the great majority of the House
had been accustomed to consider as the mere vulgar talk of back-alley
Dissent, they were now to hear expressed in logical and forcible English
by a man of liberal culture and large experience, who, while freeing
himself from what were regarded as the worst and most narrowing influences
of the Nonconformist creed, was yet true to all its main articles, and
unfeignedly proud of being a Dissenter. The speech represented far
better, and more vividly than anything else in the Education debates,
the real feeling of the great Nonconformist party. It embodied their
whole claim, and stated their whole grievance with singular sharpness and
vigour. It went to the root of the question, and the Church party were
fairly startled by the depth and bitterness of the feeling disclosed.
The cultivated Churchman, or the philosophic essayist, might equally
deplore the additional narrowness and heat imported by Mr. Winterbotham
into the controversy upon Education, when he represented the question
as so largely affected by social differences and social jealousies. But
the fact remained, and subsequent history only brought out more clearly
the unhappy and lamentable truth, that the difference between Church
and Dissent was, at least in many places throughout England, marked
by the worst characteristics of a class quarrel. Such a speech as Mr.
Winterbotham's could not but rouse the Churchmen of the House. The
challenge was taken up in turn by Lord Robert Montagu, Mr. Beresford Hope,
who thought it "impossible to conceive a speech worse-timed, or struck in
a more unfortunate key," and that Churchman of Churchmen, Sir Roundell
Palmer, who rebuked the Dissenters through Mr. Winterbotham, not without
some dignity and reason, for "inflaming the religious difficulty." He
declared in decisive language, "that the views advocated by the member
for Stroud were such as never could be accepted as the basis of a common
system of national education by that portion of the people who belonged
to the Established Church." He argued from "the broad facts of existing
schools" that the mind of the country as a whole was strongly opposed to
the principle of secular education, and in favour of that of religious
education. On the other hand, Mr. Miall and Mr. Auberon Herbert spoke
strongly in favour of the amendment; while Mr. Samuelson, also a member
of the League, announced, as did Mr. Mundella on the third night of the
debate, that, while approving heartily of the principle of the amendment,
he should vote against it, believing that the advocates of unsectarian
education should reserve all their strength for the amendment of the
Bill in committee, rather than risk, by such a motion as Mr. Dixon's,
the indefinite postponement of the whole question. Mr. Lowe had as usual
a witty remark to make upon the situation. It reminded him, he said, of
a fine herd of cattle in a large meadow, deserting the grass that was
abundant all about them, and delighting themselves by fighting over a bed
of nettles in the corner of the field--the bed of nettles being of course
the religious difficulty. He denied altogether that Government had "nailed
their colours to the mast," and were determined to make no concessions. In
fact, his cry was the same as Mr. Forster's: "Let us get into committee;
then will be the time to make concessions on both sides." The third night
of the debate was marked by several fine speeches. First of all came a
clever, popular, _ad captandum_ attack upon the Government by Mr. Vernon
Harcourt. He returned Mr. Lowe's hard hits with others equally hard, and
drew an amusing picture of the municipal elections of the future, when the
Bill had introduced into them the fatal element of religious disagreement.
Mr. Mundella and Mr. Jacob Bright took up the middle position of voting
against the amendment for conscience' sake, the speech of the former being
memorable for its moderation and fairness of tone. Conservative speakers
like Sir Charles Adderley were, of course, strong in their denunciations
of Mr. Dixon's proposal; but though Government were sure of their
majority, it was thought politic not to alienate their Radical supporters
by allowing the question to proceed to a division. Mr. Gladstone rose to
play the part of peacemaker--which, indeed, was his _rôle_ throughout the
Education debates--and promised large concessions on the three important
points of compulsion, the election of school boards, and the relation of
religious to secular teaching. With this promise the recalcitrant Liberals
professed to be contented. Mr. Dixon withdrew his amendment, and the Bill
was allowed to pass the second reading.
Except for an occasional question and answer as to the meaning of certain
portions of the Bill, the subject of Education was not again brought
forward in the House till three months had passed away. That time was
spent by the Education Office in a careful collection of statistics, in
the preparation of reports, and in various other routine business. And
by the statesmen in charge of the Bill it was spent to great profit in
observing and noting the true direction of public feeling on the matter.
The general current of Liberal opinion was indeed unmistakable, and it
was felt on all hands that concessions must be made to it in committee.
And concessions indeed were made, so far as Mr. Forster considered the
essential principles of the Bill allowed. Meanwhile he had to endure much
undeserved opprobrium, since the League persisted in treating him as a
scapegoat, and affected to exonerate the rest of the Ministry at his
expense. There was a moment when Mr. Gladstone was disposed to yield to
the clamour, but Mr. Forster, though much dispirited by the attacks of
his former friends, particularly in Bradford, was resolute in adhering
to the principles of voluntary schools and Bible teaching. Mr. Gladstone
opened the debates in committee on the 16th of June by the announcement
that the Government, while rejecting a motion of Mr. Vernon Harcourt's for
"undenominational education," combined with "unsectarian instruction in
the Bible," on the ground that such phrases were vague and unpractical,
were prepared to accept Mr. Cowper-Temple's amendment, "to exclude from
all rate-built schools every catechism and formulary distinctive of
denominational creeds, and to sever altogether the connection between the
local school boards and the denominational schools, leaving the latter to
look wholly to the central grant for help." This amendment was practically
identical with a compromise, which Mr. Forster had himself suggested in
a letter to Lord Ripon written on the 18th of May. In consequence of
this, the central grant to all schools, rate-built or voluntary, was to
be increased from one-third to one-half the total cost. The remaining
half was to be rates and school-pence in the case of board schools, and
voluntary subscriptions and school-pence in the case of denominational
schools. Mr. Disraeli, in reply, had a great deal to say with regard
to this proposal, which he described as an "entirely new Bill;" but
Government knew very well that at this particular juncture they had little
to fear, and everything to hope, from the Conservatives, and the policy of
the League was just now far more important to them than any skirmishing
of Mr. Disraeli's. An amendment by Mr. Richards, to the effect that "in
any national system of elementary education the attendance should be
everywhere compulsory, and the religious teaching supplied by voluntary
effort, and not out of public funds," provoked another long debate on the
"religious difficulty," in which a few irreconcilable Conservatives joined
with Mr. Winterbotham and Mr. Vernon Harcourt to harass the Government.
Once more did Mr. Forster defend his position, winding up a practical and
temperate speech with language unexpectedly determined. The Government,
he said, meant to yield no more ground. "We have considered," he said,
"the whole of the religious question, and we present the Bill to the House
in the form in which we think we must adhere to it." Upon the supporters
of the amendment, should it be successful, must "rest the responsibility
of defeating the Bill, and preventing the settlement of the Education
Question this year." Once more did Mr. Gladstone endeavour to pour oil on
the troubled waters, promising that "effectual guarantees should be taken
against the violation of conscience in rate-schools through the acts of
a narrow or sectarian spirit," and pointing out to the Nonconformists
that, in return for the great concession that was being made to them,
in excluding all creeds and catechisms from rate-built schools, they
owed some counterbalancing forbearance and consideration to the Church
party, which felt as strongly as they, and had greater educational
services to plead. But come what might, Government would stand by their
Bill, and no more would be yielded. Mr. Richards' amendment, however,
was thrown out by 421 to 60--figures which might well give Government
confidence. Nor were these proportions substantially altered in later
divisions. The Bill was carried through triumphantly, in spite of ardent
Churchmen like Sir Stafford Northcote, who were strongly opposed to the
Government concessions, no less than of Mr. Dixon and Mr. Jacob Bright.
In his diary Mr. Forster described the 30th of June as the day on which
the Bill passed through its crisis, and shortly afterwards his position
was greatly strengthened by promotion to a seat in the Cabinet. Night
after night did he sit through the tedious debates, ready to answer every
question and parry every attack, evincing throughout such unfailing good
humour, combined with such unflinching determination, that the House was
at once impressed and conciliated. Strong in the general support of the
Conservatives, joined to that of the moderate Liberals, he defended his
Bill at every essential point, regardless of the telling and often bitter
criticism of the League. Still certain important alterations were made
before the Bill became law; chiefly that the school boards were to be
re-elected every three years; that the school rate was not to be levied
under a distinct name; that the election of school boards should be on
the cumulative principle--that is, that where each voter had a number of
votes, he might bestow them all on a single candidate if he chose, instead
of being compelled to divide them equally. Finally, after a debate of
twenty-one days, the Bill passed the third reading without a division, but
amid the anathemas of both classes of irreconcilables. While Mr. Dixon
pronounced that Government had aroused "the suspicion, distrust, and
antagonism of some of their own most earnest supporters," Mr. Gathorne
Hardy charged them with "inaugurating a system of hypocrisy, treachery,
and baseness." Mr. Forster enjoyed the fate of all neutrals--of being
heartily abused by both belligerents.
In the House of Lords the Bill was well treated, the only important
amendment being moved and carried by the Duke of Richmond, to the
effect that vote by ballot should not extend to other than metropolitan
elections. With this alteration the Bill passed through its last stages
and became law, and it may be added that, whatever its defects, it
marked an epoch in the history of our educational system. The religious
difficulty did not disappear with the passing of the Bill, as was natural
to a difficulty which after all was primarily not religious but social.
The platforms of the League and the Union--of Nonconformity and the
Established Church--were the platforms on which the later elections for
school boards were generally fought; but the first elections largely
showed that the Bill was being loyally accepted by all parties, and Mr.
Forster was greatly pleased when Lord Lawrence, ex-Viceroy of India,
agreed to become Chairman of the first School Board for London. Certainly
the Act brought education within the reach of every English child, and
"covered England with good schools;" and the rancour of the League
defeated its own ends when Mr. Forster, on addressing his constituents in
the autumn, was received with a vote of censure.
All minor legislative undertakings of the year, even the Land Bill and the
Education Act themselves, were for the time wholly eclipsed and driven
out of public memory by news that arrived in England, by telegraph,
on the 22nd of April--news fraught with personal loss and sorrow to
many, which roused throughout England generally a storm of grief and
indignation. The facts were these: On the morning of the 11th of April,
a party of residents and tourists, comprising Lord and Lady Muncaster,
Mr. Herbert, Mr. Vyner, Mr. Lloyd, his wife and child, and Count de Boyl,
set out from Athens to visit the battle-field of Marathon, that famous
crescent-shaped piece of flat sea-shore, where the destinies of Europe
were once staked upon a single throw, and the "teeming East" received that
decisive check, the importance of which to subsequent European history
none can over-estimate. The gentlemen of the party before setting out had
made stringent inquiries in Athens respecting the rumoured presence of
brigands in the country round Marathon. Mr. Herbert had received official
information to the effect that Attica, was safe, and, the Government
declared, perfectly free from brigands. Still, to guard against any
possible danger, the Government engaged to send with them an escort of
four mounted gendarmes, who were to be joined _en route_ by others. Thus
provided, they set out, and, after such a day as a party of cultivated
people were likely to spend in such a place as Marathon, they were driving
back to Athens in the warm spring evening. Only the four gendarmes were
in sight of the carriage--two riding in front, and two behind; but the
inmates knew that at least six foot-soldiers were a little way behind
them, while it was rumoured that a further body of twenty-five soldiers
had left Marathon in their wake, ready to render help if necessary.
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF ENGLISH TOURISTS BY GREEK BRIGANDS. (_See p._
542.)]
What followed may be described in the words of Mr. Erskine's despatch of
the 12th of April to Lord Clarendon. "Just before they were to change
horses," he says, "and as they were approaching the bridge of Pikermes,
at about twelve or fourteen miles from Athens, they were suddenly fired
at from the brushwood bordering the road; and at the first discharge
the two gendarmes in front fell, badly wounded, from their horses. The
carriage then stopped, and the whole party were compelled to alight, and
with the two remaining mounted gendarmes, were hurried up the side of the
mountain"--Mount Pentelicus, famous in old Greek days. In the midst of the
general panic and uproar, the six foot-soldiers came up and opened fire on
the brigands. But alas! they were now too late, whatever their help might
have been worth a few minutes earlier. The brigands--of whom Mr. Herbert
counted at least twenty-one--had formed themselves into a compact square,
of which their captain made the centre. Thus arranged, they retreated
gradually under the fire of the soldiers, which must for some little time
have placed the lives of the prisoners in the utmost danger. Seeing that
they produced no effect, and fearing to injure those whom they had been
ordered to protect, the soldiers at last discontinued the pursuit and made
off to Athens to give the alarm. The eight unfortunate travellers found
themselves wholly at the mercy of this wild-looking band of black-browed
men, who dragged them roughly up the slopes of Mount Pentelicus without
any regard to the fatigue of the ladies and the strength of the little
child who clung to them. At the top of the mountain a halt was made,
and the ladies were told that they were to be immediately sent back to
Athens, in a country cart that happened to be at hand. Ink and paper were
supplied to Mr. Herbert, and he was peremptorily ordered to send by them
to his friends in Athens a demand for the immediate payment of a ransom of
£32,000. Driven by the countryman who owned the cart, the poor ladies--one
of whom (Mrs. Lloyd) little knew that she had parted from her husband for
the last time on earth--made their way back to Athens.
On the morning of the 13th, a note, conveyed by one of the mounted
gendarmes--who had been liberated at the same time as the ladies--reached
Mr. Erskine from Takos, the chief of the brigands, saying that if in three
days a sum of £50,000 was not forthcoming for the ransom of the "lords,"
and if all pursuit throughout the kingdom was not suspended, the prisoners
would be put to death. In the course of the day Lord Muncaster arrived
in the capital, sent by the brigands to negotiate for the ransom. He
brought the same message. Let the troops but come into collision with the
brigands, and the lives of all the captives would be at once sacrificed.
Mr. Erskine of course renewed the most strenuous representation to the
Greek Government on the subject, and received in return from the Minister
for War, General Soutzos, a solemn assurance that the brigands should
remain unmolested till the prisoners were safely restored. General Soutzos
treated the whole matter very lightly, would not allow for a moment that
the lives of the prisoners were in any danger, and said that he had no
doubt the amount demanded for their ransom might be considerably reduced
if their friends felt inclined to make any difficulty about it. No thought
of bargaining with the brigands, however, entered Mr. Erskine's or Lord
Muncaster s head, and the ransom was speedily collected with the help of
the chief banker in Athens, who showed himself most active and efficient.
But, alas! no sooner was the money forthcoming, and means of transporting
it secured, than a new element entered into the situation, and darkened
the whole aspect of affairs. This was no less than a demand on the part
of the brigands for a complete amnesty for all offences, not only for
themselves, but also for such members of the band as had once belonged
to it, but were now in prison. And should this fresh demand be refused,
they again threatened to destroy their prisoners. The Greek Government
found themselves thrown into a fatal dilemma, and it was to their reckless
attempt to extricate themselves from it that the whole of the subsequent
tragedy was owing. Under the Constitution that secured the throne of
Greece to Prince George of Denmark, the King and Ministers were pledged to
put down brigandage, the curse of Greek society, with the utmost rigour
of the law. How, then, grant such an amnesty as this to the most powerful
and most notorious band in Greece? Besides, the Ministry felt from the
first that there was more in the demand than met the eye. Such a condition
formed no part of ordinary brigand law, and would not have occurred
spontaneously to any band of lawless men who saw the prospect of getting
a large sum of money immediately after releasing their prisoners. It
appeared only too clearly afterwards that the demand was originally none
of their making, and that they were throughout supported and influenced by
the corrupt and reckless chiefs of the Greek Parliamentary Opposition. It
was a party move, meant to secure the downfall of the Ministry; and the
brigands, no less than their unfortunate prisoners, were but pieces in the
game. Once suggested, the notion no doubt caught the fancy of Takos, the
head of the band, a man of superior education to the rest; and elated by
the rank and importance of his captives, he may have made up his mind to
secure every possible advantage. The other members of the band were by no
means eager for the amnesty, and when a few days later they were flying
before the soldiery, they bitterly reproached their chief with having
demanded it.
Fully alive to the gravity of the situation, Mr. Erskine sent telegram
after telegram to Lord Clarendon. Lord Clarendon's answer was clear
and peremptory. Britain could allow no constitutional consideration to
weigh against the lives of her subjects. The Greek Constitution had
been violated before in the same manner in the Cretan insurrection and
in other cases; and Englishmen were not to be sacrificed to keep a weak
Ministry in power. The Ministry meanwhile were preparing a desperate
attempt to recover their reputation and escape from the snare laid for
them. They hoped for a successful _coup de main_, which should at once
rescue the prisoners, annihilate the brigands, relieve Government from the
responsibility of the ransom, and strengthen the position of the Ministry.
At the same time Mr. Erskine was still allowed to believe that, although
the amnesty could not be granted, no movement of the troops against
the brigands would be permitted until the prisoners were safe. Relying
upon this, Mr. Erskine sent a messenger to the brigands, reiterating
the assurance of the Government that no pursuit would be attempted; and
entreating that they would leave the mountains and bring their prisoners
down into the plains, where such delicate men as Mr. Herbert and Count de
Boyl need not be exposed to all the hardships of an open-air life. The
brigands, who had vowed to trust the word of no Greek Minister, believed
Mr. Erskine, left their mountain camp and brought their captives down to
the village of Oropus, where they seem to have been on the whole fairly
well treated. A few days were then taken up in fruitless negotiations,
conducted by a certain Colonel Theagenis, on behalf of the Greek
Government--a man afterwards denounced by Sir Henry Bulwer in the House
of Commons as the real murderer of the prisoners--and by Mr. Erskine, on
behalf of Great Britain.
It is difficult to give a consecutive account of what followed. The
Government had made up their mind to take the risk of employing the
troops. Mr. Erskine was, above all, anxious that the brigands should not
move their prisoners from Oropus, and he seems to have countenanced the
action of the Government so far as to consent to a blockade of Oropus, to
prevent them from doing so, insisting at the same time in the strongest
terms that the brigands should not be in any way molested by the soldiery
till the prisoners were safe. Colonel Theagenis was entrusted with the
conduct of the whole matter, and it appeared plainly afterwards that he
received instructions of which Mr. Erskine knew nothing, and to which he
would never have consented. The suspicions of the brigands had been by
this time aroused; the Government had been for some days silently moving
up troops in the direction of Oropus, and the scouts of the band, posted
on all sides of the village, were not slow to discover and report their
movement. On the 20th of April, the day before the massacre, letters
reached Mr. Erskine from Mr. Herbert, Mr. Lloyd, and Mr. Vyner, which
must indeed have thrown him into despair. All spoke of the imminent
danger in which these suspected movements of the troops had placed
them, and entreated that something might be done to stay the progress
of the soldiers. Mr. Noel, an English resident in Eubœa, who had taken
a prominent part in the negotiations, telegraphed to say that he felt
assured the terms offered would be accepted by the brigands, but that
the soldiers must be withdrawn. The band were going to a place not far
from Oropus called Sykamenos, whither he was about to follow them with
every hope of a successful issue. It was this movement of the brigands,
coupled with the orders given to the troops to pursue them should they
leave Oropus, that brought about the tragedy of the 21st. On that day the
brigands, suspecting the neighbourhood of troops, left Sykamenos before
Mr. Noel could come up with them. The troops received information of their
movement, followed them, and fired upon them. The brigands, driven to
desperation, turned savagely upon their prisoners. They shot Mr. Lloyd
before the eyes of the soldiers, who became infuriated at the sight of
this murderous act, and made a fierce attack upon the brigands. Six of
them were killed, including Christos Arvanitakis (Takos), and one or two
were taken alive. The others fled up the country, dragging the other
prisoners with them; and upon reaching a place named Skimatari, they
stabbed them one by one, Mr. Vyner being the last to suffer. In an hour
or two all the labour and anxiety of the last ten days had been rendered
fruitless, and four noble and valuable lives had been sacrificed to the
culpable rashness and incapacity of those who had sworn to protect and
rescue them. Mr. Noel telegraphed the fatal news to Mr. Erskine, and it
almost seemed for a time as if another death were to be added to the list,
so fearful was the effect of the tragedy upon the man who for ten days had
strained every nerve to prevent it.
For a time all England was roused to a frenzy of wrath and grief. At
one time it seemed as if nothing less than a war with Greece and the
annihilation of her whole existing political system would satisfy
English indignation. But there was one person in Greece for whom English
people felt almost as much pity as for the victims themselves--and
that was the poor young king, who throughout had been the dupe of the
unscrupulous partisans about him,--who once in a moment of alarm had
made the romantic offer to give himself up to the brigands in the
place of the captives,--and who, now that all was over, wrote the most
touching letters, full of keen personal shame and grief, to the English
Government, while later he made large offers of indemnification out of
his own private property to the families of the victims. It was well
for Greece that nearly a month elapsed before the question came to be
debated to any purpose in Parliament. During the interval the capture of
nearly all the brigands had done something toward satisfying the public
indignation. The wily leaders of the Opposition, at whose door lay the
greater part of the blame, had laid their plans so cunningly that it was
extremely difficult to detect and expose them. And after the confessions
of the brigands had thrown some light upon this part of the matter, and
a steady public opinion in England might perhaps have exacted a heavy
penalty for the lives so basely trifled with from those who had used
them only as so many pieces in the political game, English attention was
diverted by the gigantic impending tragedy of the French and German War;
and in the overwhelming interest of those first battle-fields of Wörth and
Forbach, the fate of the captives of Marathon was, for the time at least,
inevitably forgotten.
The story of the Greek massacre may now give place to the story of the
tamer debates in Parliament that still remain to be described. The two
great Acts that have already been recorded naturally fill the chief place
in the Parliamentary history of the year; but there still remain some
discussions that are worth describing, some measures whose fate has to be
told. First in order come the naval and military proposals of Mr. Childers
and Mr. Cardwell--memorable as showing the naval and military condition
of Britain at the opening of the great war year, and as indicating
more or less completely the lines upon which reorganisation afterwards
proceeded. The Naval Estimates of Mr. Childers carried out very thoroughly
those principles of economy on which the Liberal Government had laid so
much stress on its accession to power. The proposals of the First Lord
also included a scheme for the retirement of officers, and were full of
details about the intentions of the Admiralty with regard to ships and
guns--those never-ceasing perplexities of the modern naval administrator.
The gross estimates reached a total of £9,250,000--three quarters of a
million less than those of the previous year, and £1,700,000 less than
those of 1868. This saving had been arrived at by different expedients;
and, popular as the broad result was, the expedients, taken severally,
were most of them doubtfully welcomed both in and out of Parliament. The
most notable one had been the closing of several of the dockyards, and
the consequent throwing out of employment of several thousand workmen.
But Mr. Childers presented not only a justification of his policy to
the House, but showed that Government had done very much to lessen the
distress of the discharged workmen. Thus, of 2,000 who were thrown out
of work by the closing of Woolwich Dockyard, 1,000 had been transferred
to other establishments, 200 pensioned, gratuities given to 200, and 300
helped to emigrate. This, in fact, was all that could be done. Government
found themselves in a dilemma--either they must abandon retrenchment, or
they must harass certain interests. They chose to pursue their policy of
retrenchment, trusting to their own remedial measures and to the chances
of the market for providing for the discharged workmen. Mr. Childers'
proposals with regard to keeping up a proper supply of ships were "to push
on the most powerful class of armoured ships and the fastest cruisers,"
experience having shown that these were the two classes most likely to
be of use in modern wars--the one for fighting, the other for pursuit.
He had much to say about new guns; he promised to send another flying
squadron round the world; he detailed his measures for forming a reserve
of sailors; and, above all, he unfolded his new scheme of retirement for
officers. The details of this scheme, stated shortly, were that admirals
of the fleet were to be compelled to retire at 70 years of age, admirals
and vice-admirals at 65, rear-admirals at 60, captains at 55, commanders
at 50, and lieutenants at 45. With this he proposed a scale of pensions,
and promised that the result would be a considerable benefit to the
service and a saving to the country of about £300,000 a year.
[Illustration: "REARING THE LION'S WHELPS."
FROM THE PAINTING BY W. L. WYLLIE, A.R.A.]
[Illustration: THE ROYAL PALACE, ATHENS. (_From a Photograph by Rhemaidez
Frères, Athens._)]
Mr. Cardwell's army proposals need not be described at length, for they
merge into the far more comprehensive proposals of the next year, when
the war had compelled the country to look its military affairs in the
face, and to consent to a thoroughgoing scheme of reorganisation. Still,
even in this year, Mr. Cardwell struck the note of a very decided reform.
He proposed reductions both in the colonial and the home army, and laid
down the two principles, though he did not fully work them out, upon
which the reorganisation of 1871 was based--namely, short service and
abolition of purchase. He abolished the rank of ensign and cornet, as a
first step towards the latter; he announced his plan of enlistments for
twelve years, six to be passed in the regular army and six in the reserve,
as a preparation for the former. He proposed to disband the Canadian
Rifles, the Cape Mounted Rifles, the 3rd West Indian Regiment, and the
African Artillery. He reduced the Indian establishment, and proposed an
elaborate method of reducing the strength of all home regiments. By all
these measures he brought about a reduction of £1,136,900 on the estimates
of the previous year, and of £2,330,800 on those of the year before. The
figures by which he described the strength of the army at the beginning
of this year were:--Regulars and others available for all services, home
and foreign, 109,225; second army of reserve, 20,000; militia, 63,000;
yeomanry, 15,300; volunteers, 168,477. In other words, a total of 376,002,
nearly half of them being volunteers--figures that tempt one to speculate
what would have been the result of all this reduction and economy had the
German armies made their appearance before London instead of before Paris!
The revenue of the year, as Mr. Lowe announced in his Budget speech,
amounted to £76,505,000; a sum of which nearly four millions were due
to the new mode of collecting taxes instituted by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer--a mode that for the first year caused the revenue to appear
far greater than it really was. The expenditure was £68,223,000; and the
surplus was devoted to paying about half the cost of the Abyssinian War,
to a reduction of the income tax by a penny in the pound, to a reduction
of the sugar duties, and to various smaller reductions. In finance, at
least, the _annus mirabilis_ cannot be pronounced unfortunate, so far as
England was concerned.
The history of Parliament in 1870 must be completed by a mention of a few
Bills that became law, and a few that did not. This year saw the passing
of a Bill that practically repealed the law that Pitt had carried in order
to exclude Horne Tooke from the House of Commons--a Bill, moved by Mr.
Hibbert, to remove the civil disabilities of clergymen. This provided that
any clergyman wishing to relinquish the office of priest or deacon might
do so by signing a deed, to be registered by the bishop. From the moment
of his signing, he was to become free to practise any trade or profession,
and to sit in Parliament--to become, in fact, a layman. It may be added
that a considerable number of distinguished clergy took advantage of
the Act soon after it was passed. Mr. Russell Gurney's Married Women's
Property Bill was another of great practical importance; but unfortunately
its success was only partial. It proposed to give married women the
absolute control of their own earnings, instead of allowing the husband
to seize them at his pleasure. The Bill was of course directed mainly
towards the class of wage-earning people, where the wife often contributed
largely to the family stock by the labour of her hands; and no one who had
any knowledge of this class could be ignorant of the fearful amount of
misery that a drunken or worthless husband might cause by compelling his
wife to keep him in drink and idleness. Mr. Russell Gurney's Bill aimed
at curing this state of things; and, in spite of the difficulties of the
question, the advantage of protecting married women in the possession of
their actual earnings was evident to almost everybody. But in the House
of Lords, where there were no members pledged to support women's rights,
the Bill was severely handled by the law lords and others. The unbelief
of Lord Westbury, the peculiar experience of Lord Penzance, induced them
to "amend" the Bill in its most essential points. It passed, but passed
mutilated; yet its advocates had helped to familiarise the public mind
with its principle, and a measure much more consistent and comprehensive
became law in a later year. The House of Lords also threw out for this
Session the Bill of Sir John Coleridge for abolishing religious tests in
the Universities, and also the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, which the
House of Commons had passed. This Bill, which has been described as "a
Bill to enable a woman to marry her deceased sister's husband," found
great favour with the Dissenters, and was pushed through the Lower House
mainly by their exertions. But the House of Lords was more open to High
Church influence--Lord Salisbury was a greater power there than Mr.
Beresford Hope in the Commons--and was never too willing to pass Bills for
the simple removal of disabilities, matrimonial or other.
In the first month of the year, before Parliament met, a terrible
catastrophe occurred in the Eastern seas, through which a fine ship-of-war
belonging to a friendly nation was run down by an English mail steamer
and sunk, the accident being attended by a lamentable loss of life. The
United States steam corvette _Oneida_ left the anchorage at Yokohama, the
port of Yedo, in Japan, at about five o'clock on the evening of the 24th
of January, 1870. Two hours later the noble vessel had sunk beneath the
waves and the greater part of her crew had been swept into eternity. It
was nearly 7 P.M.; the officers were at dinner below, when the
look-out man shouted, "Steamer lights ahead," and the midshipman on watch
gave the order to port the helm. The approaching vessel (which proved to
be the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamship _Bombay_) was steering
due north, and making for the port of Yokohama; the _Oneida_ appears to
have been steering a south-easterly course. Captain Eyre, commanding the
_Bombay_, afterwards deposed on oath, that when the _Oneida_ was first
sighted, she was about a mile distant, and that he immediately ported
his helm, and kept porting it for a considerable time, in order to clear
her. While the _Bombay_ was still heading off to starboard, Captain Eyre
deposed that he saw the stranger putting her helm hard a-starboard, and
crossing the bow of the _Bombay_ with full sails and steam. The night
being dark, the vessels were at that moment not more than a hundred feet
apart. Captain Eyre instantly stopped his engines, and put his helm hard
a-starboard, hoping to go clear of the approaching vessel. Unfortunately
the vessels were too close together for this, and a collision occurred,
the bows of the _Bombay_ cutting into the starboard side of the _Oneida_,
about the mizen rigging. Neither ship was entangled with the other; and
Captain Eyre, not hearing or seeing, as he said, any signal of distress
from the other ship, and being informed that the _Bombay_ was making
water, ordered the engines to be set going at full speed and made the
best of his way for Yokohama. The unfortunate crew of the _Oneida_ felt
themselves to be cruelly abandoned; for, besides the shock and the
danger of the collision itself--in consideration of which the unharmed
or slightly harmed vessel ought in common humanity to have waited to
ascertain the effects of the accident upon the other, before proceeding
on her course--several of the _Oneida's_ guns, which happened to be
loaded at the time, were almost instantly fired to attract the attention
of the _Bombay_ and bring her back. Two of the ship's boats, containing
fifty-six men, floated after she had gone down, and were picked up and
brought safely to Yokohama; the rest of the officers and crew--a hundred
and twenty in number--went down with the ship. A court of inquiry was held
at Kanagawa, in Japan, to investigate the circumstances of the collision,
and the result was that Captain Eyre's certificate was suspended for six
months. The Board of Trade afterwards ratified the finding of the court of
inquiry, and expressed their opinion that the sentence of suspension was
"inadequate to the gravity of the offence."
We must now turn to the obituary of the year, omitting, however, according
to our custom, the domains of literature and art, which are reserved for
a later chapter. A statesman of high rank, a judge of great and long-lived
reputation, some illustrious soldiers, were among those who died. Of
several of these--of Sir De Lacy Evans, of Sir G. F. Seymour, of Sir
William Gordon, and of General Windham--it is not necessary to speak; nor
of Dr. Gilbert, the cultivated Bishop of Chichester, once the well-known
Principal of Brasenose College. More famous than these was Sir Frederick
Pollock, formerly Chief Baron of the Exchequer, who began his public
career by coming out as Senior Wrangler at Cambridge in 1806, and ended it
sixty-four years later as a judge who had carried into his retirement the
respect and affection of his colleagues and the bar. He was, too, a member
of a notable family--for Sir David Pollock, once Chief Justice of Bombay,
and Field-Marshal Sir George Pollock, the famous Indian soldier, were his
brothers. It is rare for three brothers to reach, as they did, the very
highest posts in their different professions, especially if, like these,
they start with no advantages of wealth or birth. Lord Clarendon, who
died on the 27th of June, had started with those advantages, but he had
turned them to good account. He was the head of the Clarendon branch of
the Villiers family, which has for a long time been Whig; and he carried
out through a long official life the best traditions of Whig policy as a
diplomatist, Foreign Secretary, and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, though the
chief responsibility for the Crimean War must always rest upon his memory.
[Illustration: THE BOULEVARD MONTMARTRE, PARIS.]