1866-1872.
Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill--The Cave of Adullam--Defeat and
Resignation of the Ministry--Retirement of Earl Russell--Lord
Derby's Last Administration--Disturbance in Hyde
Park--Commercial Panic--Completion of the Atlantic Cable--Mr.
Disraeli's Reform Bill--Secessions from the Cabinet--The
Fenians--War with Abyssinia--Retirement of Lord Derby--The Irish
State Church--Dissolution of Parliament--Liberal Triumph--Mr.
Gladstone's Cabinet--Disestablishment of the Irish Church--Death
of Lord Derby--Irish Land Legislation--National Education--Army
Purchase--The Ballot Bill--Adoption of Secret Voting.
[Illustration: _J. Tenniel._} {_From "Punch."_
RETIRING INTO PRIVATE LIFE.
Lord Brougham: "Eh, Johnny, ye'll find it mighty dull here!" Lord John
Russell was raised to the Peerage in 1861.]
[Sidenote: The Cave of Adullam.]
The only changes in the old Cabinet, consequent on the death of its
great chief, were the advance of Earl Russell to the Premiership and the
appointment of Lord Clarendon to the Foreign Office. But the change in
the House of Commons was as momentous as it was abrupt. The place of its
old leader--the safe, the leisurely, the unemotional Palmerston--was
filled by the restless and ardent, the uncertain Gladstone. The
Conservatives were dispirited and anxious; they were afraid of what the
new House of Commons might be led to do; party feeling began to acquire
a new bitterness, the offspring of fear, which was to grow more and more
intense until the final retirement of Mr. Gladstone in 1895. The
Radicals, on the other hand, were sanguine and jubilant. Reinforced in
numbers, and relieved from the restraint which the irresistible prestige
of Palmerston had imposed on their aspirations, they felt that the
moment for action had come; they had got a leader after their own
hearts, and the first thing to do was to extend the franchise. But there
was disappointment in store for them. Mr. Gladstone introduced his Bill
on March 12; it pleased nobody. The Radicals detected in it the frigid
hand of the Whigs, and the moderate Liberals, secretly detesting all
schemes for a Democratic franchise, began by viewing it coldly, and
gradually drifted into opposition with the Conservatives. Its most
formidable opponent rose from the Ministerial Benches. Mr. Robert Lowe,
whom an intimate acquaintance with Australasian politics had imbued with
profound distrust for Democratic institutions, made a brilliant and
fearless onslaught on the measure, and received all that rapturous
applause which is the invariable reward of a strong man turning his
weapons against his own party. Gradually he drew to himself a compact
band of malcontents, whose memory might have passed into oblivion long
ere this but for a happy metaphor employed by Mr. John Bright, who
likened them to the men who gathered to David in the Cave of Adullam.
"Every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and
every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him." People
were tickled with the illustration: straightway the Liberal dissentients
were dubbed Adullamites, and "a cave" has remained ever since the
recognised term for a group of men combining to act against their own
party.
[Illustration: KING WILLIAM STREET, ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
In point of size, Adelaide holds the third place among Australian cities
with a population (1891) of 133,252. South Australia now stretches right
across the continent, and has an area of 578 million acres and a
population (1895) of 357,405. It was first colonised in 1836, and
constituted a self-governing Colony in 1856. Imports (1895), £5,680,880;
exports, £7,352,742.]
Mr. Lowe's band proved strong enough to kill the measure. It passed the
second reading, indeed, by a majority of five, but it perished in
Committee, and the Ministry resigned. It was the closing scene of Earl
Russell's long career, which somehow had missed the success which his
achievements seemed to have earned. Born in the very holiest of holies
of the Whig sanctuary, with natural abilities far more varied, with
acquired culture far more extensive, with greater advantages from family
connection than Palmerston could boast, and without Palmerston's
headstrong tendencies, he never attained more than a fraction of the
influence and popularity which Palmerston had so fully secured.
Indispensable for more than a generation to every Whig or Liberal
Cabinet, he had become associated more with the failures than the
successes of his party, and people ungratefully remembered him rather as
the betrayer of Denmark than as the pioneer of Reform.
[Illustration: PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
The Swan River Settlement was founded in 1826, and made a separate
Colony, under the name of Western Australia, in 1829. It remained a
Crown Colony until 1890, when it became a self-governing community.
Population (1897), 138,000 (estimated). Imports (1895), £3,774,951;
exports, £1,332,554.]
[Sidenote: Lord Derby's last Administration.]
[Sidenote: Disturbance in Hyde Park.]
Once more it was Lord Derby's fate to form a stop-gap Administration,
and no sooner was the new Ministry complete, early in July, than the
country suddenly threw off the indifference it had shown to Mr.
Gladstone's offer of an extended franchise, and public meetings were
held all over the country vehemently demanding Reform. It was too late
in the session, of course, to do anything that year in Parliament, but
the agitation sufficed to show that there was at least one weak man in
the Cabinet. The Reform League summoned a meeting in Hyde Park for the
evening of July 23, which it was decided to prohibit, and amiable,
gentle Mr. Walpole, the Home Secretary, issued a notice that the Park
gates would be closed at 5 p.m. Notwithstanding this announcement,
processions with bands and banners arrived at the appointed hour, and
Mr. Beales, President of the League, demanded admittance, which was
refused. Mr. Beales was an experienced barrister, and knew very well
what he was about. He was of opinion that in denying the right of public
meeting in Hyde Park, the Home Secretary was acting beyond his powers,
and, content with asserting this right in a formal way, he intended to
adjourn the meeting and claim redress by constitutional means. But a
meeting in Hyde Park, no matter for what purpose, invariably attracts
thousands of idlers and roughs, who have no part and no interest in the
question to be discussed. Mr. Beales and the earnest reformers adjourned
to Trafalgar Square and passed resolutions to their hearts' content; but
the rough and idle part of the crowd remained about Hyde Park. The gates
were strong enough to resist any pressure, but the railings were old and
frail. People climbing on them felt them shake and creak; half a dozen
fellows gave a push together in Park Lane--the railings gave way; in an
instant the whole length from Hamilton Gardens to the Marble Arch went
down, and the Park was filled with a tumultuous, rollicking mob. The
grass and the flower-beds were the only property that suffered; the
police took a few prisoners, and the crowd dispersed peacefully at
nightfall. Mr. Beales took a small deputation to the Home Secretary next
day, urging him to withdraw the troops and police, and trust the people
to take care of the town. Mr. Walpole consented; it may have been
prudent to do so, but the manner of doing it was unfortunate. It is a
dangerous precedent for a Home Secretary to show himself afraid of the
consequence of carrying out his own decrees.
[Illustration: _G. Magnussen._} {_From the Royal Collection._
THE MARRIAGE OF PRINCESS HELENA AND PRINCE CHRISTIAN OF
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN-SONDERBURG-AUGUSTENBURG, IN THE PRIVATE CHAPEL AT
WINDSOR CASTLE, July 5, 1866.]
[Sidenote: Commercial Panic.]
The summer of 1866 will be remembered long in the City of London by
reason of the commercial disaster and monetary panic which followed
sharply on a period of speculative inflation, the combined result of
active trade and the new law of limited liability. The suspension early
in May of the great discount firm of Overend and Gurney, with
liabilities figured at £19,000,000, was followed within the same week by
the failure of several banks and the suspension of the Bank Charter Act.
On May 11 the Bank rate was raised to 10 per cent. and continued at that
point till August 17. The shock was one from which the credit of the
country took a long time to recover, and the amount of private
misfortune and loss of income reacted on almost every department of
trade, though the public revenue maintained a surprising degree of
elasticity.
[Illustration:
A. Private, Queensland Mounted Infantry.
B. Trooper, South Australian Cavalry.
C. Trooper, New South Wales Cavalry.
D. Trooper, Bodyguard, Canada.
E. Trooper, Canadian Dragoons (Winter Dress).
F. Private, Cape Mounted Infantry.
G. Sergeant, Cape Town Highlanders.
H. Officer, 8th Battalion Active Militia of Canada.
J. Officer, Royal Malta Artillery.
K. Trooper, Canadian Dragoons.
L. Gunner, Royal Canadian Artillery (Winter Dress).
_R. Simkin._}
TYPES OF COLONIAL TROOPS, 1897.]
[Sidenote: The Atlantic Cable.]
A brighter passage in the record of 1866 is that which commemorates the
completion of telegraphic communication between Great Britain and
America. Attempts had been made in 1857, 1858, and 1865 to lay a cable
across the Atlantic, all of which ended in failure; but Mr. Cyrus Field
would not abandon his dream. The _Great Eastern_ steamship sailed from
Berehaven on July 12, and on July 27 the first messages were exchanged
between the old and new worlds. A feat hardly less inspiring was
performed later in the same season, in the recovery of the broken cable
of 1865, which was spliced, thereby effecting a second connection
between the two continents.
[Sidenote: "A Leap in the Dark."]
Mr. Disraeli, as has been said, had undertaken the task in which Mr.
Gladstone had failed, and brought in a Reform Bill early in the session
of 1867. It cost the Government a heavy price at the outset: Lord
Carnarvon, Lord Cranbourne (now Marquis of Salisbury), and General Peel
resigned their seats in the Cabinet because they disapproved of it. The
Bill went forward, and, after undergoing many changes, finally passed in
a form conferring household suffrage in boroughs and a £12 franchise in
counties. "No doubt," said Lord Derby on the third reading of the Bill
in the Lords, quoting a remark made by Lord Cranbourne in the other
House, "no doubt we are making a great experiment and 'taking a leap in
the dark,' but I have the greatest confidence in the sound sense of my
fellow-countrymen." But another saying by Lord Derby gives a truer
insight into the real object of a Conservative Government in doing work
so repugnant to its accredited principles. Somebody having observed to
him that the measure was dangerously democratic--"We have dished the
Whigs!" was all that Derby replied. Mr. Disraeli, in reference to the
same subject, made use of a phrase which gave bitter offence to some of
his party, and deepened the distrust with which the old school of
Conservatives regarded him almost to the end of his life. On October 29,
1867, he was entertained at a banquet by the Conservatives of Edinburgh,
and when passing in review the events of the session, and especially his
Reform Act, he said: "I had to prepare the mind of the country, and to
educate--if it be not arrogant to use such a phrase--to educate our
party."
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Beattie, Hobart._
HOBART, TASMANIA.
Tasmania, formerly known as Van Diemen's Land, was taken possession of
by the British in 1803. It was governed from Sydney until 1825, when it
became an independent province; and it received its existing
Constitution in 1855. Population (1895), 160,834; imports, £1,094,457;
exports, £1,373,063.]
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Beattie, Hobart._
LAUNCESTON, TASMANIA.]
[Sidenote: The Fenians.]
The stream of emigration westward which set in after the Irish famine in
1848 had resulted in creating a very large Irish population in the
United States. All these emigrants had brought with them a bitter hatred
of England, on whom they laid the blame of all the sufferings of their
own people. They had found in America the true remedy for their wrongs,
which, had they realised it, arose not so much from political, as from
physical causes. By moving to a spacious land where labour was in
demand, they escaped from the evils which must always press upon a
congested population with no proper outlet for its energy. But still
they loved old Ireland and hated England, and, finding themselves of
political importance in the new land, for the Irish vote soon became
indispensable to the Democratic party, they busied themselves with
projects for the deliverance of their country. They found plenty of
encouragement from Americans, for the feeling in the Northern States was
very bitter against England after the close of the civil war. Thousands
of Irishmen had learnt the art of war and the use of weapons in the
Federal armies; a military organisation was set on foot in the belief
that Great Britain and the United States were on the point of going to
war. This organisation, which adopted the title of Fenian, had for its
leader a man of great ability and experience, James Stephens. The
Government received due warning of what was in preparation; in fact, the
leaders of the movement in Ireland openly proclaimed their intention of
restoring by force of arms the independence of Ireland. They had plenty
of funds: every Irish man and maid in America contributed something to
such a glorious purpose. A steady stream of American-Irish, most of them
old soldiers of the civil war, set in from across the Atlantic, and
scattered themselves among the towns and villages of Ireland. At last
Stephens himself arrived, who, having been mixed up in the rising of
1848, was promptly arrested and lodged in Richmond Prison, Dublin, in
November, 1865. All Ireland was convulsed with delight when, a few days
later, he was found to have escaped.
The absence of Stephens from America had evil results to the Fenians
there. One party was for invading Canada, a project which Stephens had
never favoured. No sooner was his back turned, than a party of Fenians
actually crossed the Niagara river, occupied a fort, and defeated a
force of Canadian volunteers. Just as in 1838, when the Canadians were
in revolt, the United States Government had saved the position for Great
Britain by enforcing the neutrality of their frontier, so now it acted a
similar part, and put an end to what might have become a highly
dangerous state of affairs. Stephens never reappeared, but the
preparations he had started were continued. With the pathetic
hero-worship of the Celt, the Irish peasantry were confident that their
lost leader would return among them soon and lead them to victory. But
one brief taste of prison discipline had been enough for this doughty
champion, and he is believed to have spent the rest of his life abroad
in comparative affluence, derived from the subscriptions collected from
his dupes.
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Valentine & Sons, Dundee._
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND.
The first body of immigrants arrived at Port Nicholson in 1840. In the
same year the whole of the islands were annexed by Great Britain, and
Wellington and Auckland were founded. Constitutional government was
conferred in 1853. In 1865 Wellington became the seat of government. The
population of the islands in 1895 was 698,706; imports, £6,400,129;
exports, £8,550,224.]
In February 1867 the Government frustrated a Fenian plot to seize
Chester Castle; there was an attempt at a general rising in Ireland,
which ended in the loss of a few lives in harebrained and disconnected
attacks on police barracks in Cork, Limerick, Louth, and elsewhere, and
a number of American-Irish were arrested. Two of these prisoners were
being conveyed across Manchester in a prison van, when it was suddenly
attacked by a party of armed Fenians. A policeman was shot dead, the
prisoners were rescued and were never recaptured.
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Valentine & Sons, Dundee._
THE PINK TERRACES, ROTOMAHANA, NEW ZEALAND.
The water from the hot springs, on its way to Lake Rotomahana ("Warm
Lake"), left a deposit which gradually assumed the forms shown in the
illustration. The water was exquisitely blue; the terraces on one side
of the lake were white, on the other a transparent pink. Both were
completely destroyed in the great eruption of 1886.]
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Valentine & Sons, Dundee._
THE WHITE TERRACES, ROTOMAHANA, NEW ZEALAND.]
The only other serious act of the Fenians was an attempt to release two
prisoners confined in Clerkenwell Gaol, who, considering the means
adopted, might very well pray to be delivered from their friends. A
barrel of gunpowder, placed against the outer wall, was exploded at four
in the afternoon, throwing down about sixty yards of masonry and
wrecking several houses in the street. But for a warning received by
the Governor of the gaol that an attempt was to be made to blow it up,
the prisoners would have been at exercise in the yard at the time of the
explosion, and almost certainly must have been killed. As it was, twelve
persons were killed and 120 were wounded.
[Illustration: SIR ROBERT NAPIER, AFTERWARDS LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA,
1810-1890.
Born in Ceylon. Commander-in-Chief of Bombay, 1865, and of India, 1870.
Raised to the Peerage, 1869, for his services in Abyssinia.]
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by G. W. Wilson & Co., Aberdeen._
PARLIAMENT HOUSE AND TABLE MOUNTAIN, CAPE TOWN.
See historical notes on Cape Colony, page 71. Area, including
dependencies (estimated), 292,000 square miles; population, 1,800,000,
of whom 39,000 are British born; imports (1895), £19,094,880; exports,
£16,904,756, including diamonds, £4,775,016; gold, £7,975,637; wool,
£2,000,000.]
[Sidenote: War with Abyssinia.]
The arms of a great and growing empire are seldom allowed to rust from
disuse, no matter how pacific the intentions of its rulers may be.
Parliament was called together in November 1867 to vote supplies for an
Expedition which it had been found necessary to send out to Abyssinia,
under the command of Sir Robert Napier. Theodore, King of Abyssinia, a
passionate and semi-barbarous despot, had cultivated amicable relations
with Great Britain for a number of years, chiefly on account of his
friendship for Mr. Plowden, formerly English Consul at Massowah. But Mr.
Plowden was dead--killed in an encounter between Theodore and his
rebellious subjects; and Captain Cameron, who succeeded to the Consulate
at Massowah, had not succeeded in ingratiating himself with the King.
Theodore appealed to Queen Victoria to help him against the Turks, and
on receiving no immediate reply to his letter, lost his temper and threw
all the British subjects he could catch into the cavernous dungeons of
his capital, Magdala. Among these captives was Captain Cameron. Mr.
Rassam was sent on an embassy to remonstrate with Theodore, who,
however, was not inclined to listen to reason. On the contrary, he had
the envoy seized, with his companions, Lieutenant Prideaux and Dr.
Blane, loaded with chains, and thrust into prison. Lord Stanley now sent
to demand the release of the prisoners within three months, and declared
that immediate invasion would follow if this were refused. It was a
delicate business to convey despatches to the tyrant in his rock
fortress, and Theodore never received the ultimatum. The expedition set
out: 400 miles of very mountainous country had to be traversed, but
everything had been admirably prepared in the matter of transport and
commissariat, and Napier was an experienced commander. The ease of the
victory which awaited him has done something to diminish the fame which
is really his due for accomplishing a very difficult task. He
encountered the Abyssinian army under the walls of Magdala on April 10,
1868; the King's soldiers fought with headlong gallantry, and fell in
heaps before the terrible fire of British Infantry. Charge after charge
was repelled, until Napier found that his enemy had vanished, leaving
some 2,000 dead and wounded on the field, while in his own force the
casualties amounted to no more than nineteen wounded. The fierce old
King so far bowed under chastisement that the captives were released,
but he refused to surrender. It then became necessary to enforce the
lesson that, if Great Britain does not take up arms lightly, neither
does she lay them down without exacting all her demands. Napier
determined to take Magdala by assault. Perched high on a precipitous
rock, it occupied a position which, in old times and without modern
appliances, must have been pronounced inaccessible. But there are few
places to which courage equipped by science can be denied admission: the
northern gate was stormed, and lying within it was found the old lion
King. Preferring death to dishonour he had perished by his own hand.
Lord Derby's health had given him repeated warning that the time had
come when he must seek release from public duties. He retired from
office in February 1868, and Mr. Disraeli became Prime Minister. "The
time will come when you _will_ hear me." Few--very few--who had heard
that vaunt shouted across the House in 1837 were there to witness its
complete fulfilment in 1868. It was a position of the highest honour,
but not one of great power to which Disraeli had succeeded, and he was
not called on to occupy it long. He could not reckon on a majority on
any question upon which the Opposition should act together under a
resolute leader. Such a question and such a leader were soon found.
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by G. W. Wilson & Co., Aberdeen._
SEARCHING TABLES AT THE DE BEERS' DIAMOND MINE, KIMBERLEY, SOUTH
AFRICA.]
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by J. H. Murray,
Pietermaritzburg._
TOWN HALL, DURBAN.
Durban, the largest town in Natal, had a population in 1894 of 27,984.
Natal has an estimated area of 20,461 square miles, and a population
(1891) of 543,913. Imports, from Great Britain (1895), £1,602,023;
exports, to Great Britain, £716,645.]
[Sidenote: The Irish State Church.]
[Sidenote: Liberal Triumph.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet.]
[Sidenote: Death of Lord Derby.]
In choosing the Established Protestant Church of Ireland for attack, Mr.
Gladstone selected the weakest spot in the Constitution; one,
nevertheless, which the Conservative party were bound to defend to their
last man. The Irish peasantry, except those of the greater part of
Ulster, were Roman Catholics, and Roman Catholics of a peculiarly devout
and enthusiastic kind. The Protestant Establishment was an alien Church,
and could never be anything else; a monument of conquest which it had
been unwise to set up. It presented itself to Mr. Gladstone as the very
core and pillar of disaffection, and it was very easy to make out a
strong case for its abolition. In March 1868 he brought forward three
resolutions, declaring that it was the opinion of the House of Commons
that the Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist, and the
first division showed a majority of sixty-one in favour of the project
and against the Government. In consequence of this Disraeli advised the
Queen to dissolve Parliament, which was done in July. Writs were made
returnable in November, and the interval was spent in such canvassing
and platform work as the country had never experienced before. Mr.
Gladstone was beaten in Lancashire, Mr. W. H. Smith ousted Mr. Mill from
Westminster, and Mr. Roebuck lost his seat at Sheffield; nevertheless,
the general result of the polls was an immense gain to the Liberals,
showing a majority for them of 120 in the New Parliament. Mr. Gladstone,
having found a seat at Greenwich, set to work to obey the Queen's
bidding in forming a Ministry. The most notable accession to the Cabinet
was that of Mr. Bright, who became Secretary of State for India, thus
marking an epoch in Parliamentary history by the formal recognition of
the extreme Radicals as a party in the State. The great business of the
session of 1869 was, of course, the Bill to disestablish and disendow
the Irish Church. No Irish question can be touched without releasing the
springs of oratory of a quality beside which the most impassioned
appeals of average English or Scottish speakers seem tame and halting.
In the Commons the fight was a foregone conclusion; but the Irish Church
was an exceedingly wealthy corporation, and the disposal of its
possessions, to the value of sixteen millions sterling, afforded matter
for long and complicated debates in Committee. The Lords could not be
persuaded even to delay the Act on which the country and the House of
Commons had spoken with so much decision. The Bill passed its second
reading by a majority of thirty-three, and received the Royal Assent on
July 26, 1869. Lord Derby had made his last speech on the second reading
of this measure, which he resisted with much of his ancient vigour and
all his splendid eloquence. He died in October of the same year, and, in
the opinion of most men qualified to form one, Parliament lost in him
its most polished orator.
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Annan & Sons, Glasgow._
DAVID LIVINGSTONE, 1813-1873.
African Missionary and Explorer. Born at Blantyre, near Glasgow, and in
his youth worked in cotton-mills in that town. Sent to Africa by the
London Missionary Society in 1838, he thenceforth spent his life in
exploring and evangelizing that continent. In 1865 and 1870 expeditions
were sent in search of him. He died at Ilala. His body was brought to
England, and buried in Westminster Abbey.]
[Illustration: _J. Ballantyne, R.S.A._} {_In the National Portrait
Gallery._
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A., 1802-1873.
This distinguished animal painter was born in London. He was knighted in
1850, and in 1865 was offered and declined the office of President of
the Royal Academy. The picture represents him in the studio of Baron
Marochetti, at work on one of the lions for the Nelson column. These
were cast in bronze, and placed in position in January 1867.]
[Sidenote: Irish Land Legislation.]
The Irish people at first showed few signs of gratitude for the
disestablishment of their State Church. The Fenians were giving fresh
signs of activity, agrarian crime was of frightful frequency during the
winter of 1869-70, and the virulence of the anti-British press became
day by day more intense. Troops were poured into the country to repress
disturbance, and Mr. Gladstone set about preparing fresh measures of
conciliation. The Irish land system, theoretically almost identical in
general principles to that of Great Britain, not only differed from it
in important details, but had come to be worked on wholly different
lines from those pursued by English and Scottish landlords. In Great
Britain the tendency had been to throw small unprofitable holdings into
substantial farms which should be worth the efforts of energetic men of
means to cultivate. The landlord, as a rule, equipped the farm with
suitable buildings and fences, and frequently lived on his estates
during most of the year. In Ireland, with few exceptions, buildings and
improvements of every sort were executed by the tenant, who was allowed
to subdivide his holding into mere patches of land, with a hovel run up
at the expense of the occupant. The peasantry were bound to their
holdings by the capital they had sunk in them; they could not in every
season wring the rent out of the land; huge masses of arrears
accumulated, often ending in eviction, which meant practical
confiscation of such permanent improvements as had been effected. All
the evil effects and bitter feelings arising out of this decrepid mode
of tenure were intensified by the ever-increasing tendency of landowners
to absenteeism, and by the prevailing difference in the religion of
proprietors and peasantry.
[Illustration: _W. H. Mason._} {_From a Print at the Oval._
CRICKET IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REIGN.
Sussex _v._ Kent, at Brighton, 1842.]
In Ulster, indeed, the conditions were different. Not only was there a
large Protestant element in the farming and labouring class, but the
custom of tenant-right had grown up, protecting the tenant against
disturbance as long as he paid his rent, securing his right to
compensation on leaving for improvements executed by himself, and, most
important of all, giving him a saleable property in the goodwill of the
tenancy. The Ulster tenantry, as a rule, were prosperous. Mr. Gladstone
refused to see in their prosperity only the result of their greater
industry and capacity for business: he set it down to the system of dual
ownership involved in the recognition of tenant-right, and this system
he resolved to apply to every part of Ireland by creating a statutory
partnership between landlord and tenant. It is hardly possible to
conceive a reform more vital than that initiated by this measure in the
social fabric of Ireland; for, except in the north-east of Ulster,
agriculture forms the sole important industry of that country. Yet the
Conservative Opposition, led by Mr. Disraeli, made no attempt to resist
it; the case for legislation was too clamant.
[Illustration: _J. Leech._} {_From "Punch."_
FASHIONS IN 1864.
The safest way to take a lady down!]
[Sidenote: National Education.]
[Sidenote: Army Purchase.]
Far-reaching as the Irish Land Bill has proved in its effects, it was
hardly of greater moment than a measure introduced two days later by Mr.
W. E. Forster, establishing a scheme of elementary education. The
Government had been not more than two years in office, and had amply
fulfilled the first part of an ambitious programme by passing three
measures of extraordinary importance, dealing with the Irish Church,
Irish land tenure, and national education; yet the tide of popular
favour which had carried them into power began to show unmistakeable
signs of ebbing. The legislation of 1871, actual and proposed, served to
add to the number of malcontents. The first step taken was against the
system of purchase in the army. It was the recognised practice in all
except a few special corps in the British army for an officer to
purchase his first commission, as well as every subsequent step in
regimental promotion. There was a regulation scale of prices, but there
was also an extra regulation payment, winked at by the authorities. An
officer's commission thus became a valuable property to him, which he
could dispose of on leaving the service. It was a system which few
people could defend successfully in theory, but it was one that had
worked well in practice; and the project to sweep it away created a
vigorous opposition. But what makes the Parliamentary fight over army
purchase of moment in history is the means by which Mr. Gladstone
carried his purpose in the teeth of the House of Lords. The abolition of
purchase had been part only of a sweeping measure of army
re-organisation brought in by Mr. Cardwell. In order to save part of the
Bill, the Government threw overboard every section of it except the
purchase clauses. The Lords, desiring to defeat what was left of the
original Bill, declared they would not accept the purchase clauses until
the whole scheme of army reform was before them. A sigh of relief
escaped from military men; the system endeared to them by custom and
association had been saved by the action of the Upper House. But they
had to learn how resolute and adroit was he with whom they had to
reckon. Mr. Gladstone had a theatrical surprise in store for everyone.
He gave the go-by to Parliament by announcing that, whereas army
purchase had been created by Royal warrant, it could be rendered illegal
by the same means; and, therefore, he had advised the Queen to cancel
the old warrant and issue a new one. It was a complete victory over the
House of Lords; they were forced to pass the Bill so obnoxious to them,
otherwise the officers of the army would have been deprived of the
compensation provided for the sums they had paid for their commissions.
But the victory was very damaging to Mr. Gladstone's Government.
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Thiele, Chancery Lane._
CRICKET IN THE LATER YEARS OF THE REIGN.
England _v._ Australia at Lords, June 22, 23, 24, 1896. Dr. Grace is at
the further wicket.]
[Illustration: _G. Du Maurier._} {_From "Punch."_
FASHIONS IN 1870.
He: "Shall we--a--sit down?" She: "I should like to, but my dressmaker
says I mustn't."]
[Sidenote: The Ballot Bill.]
Most educated people were tired, and perhaps ashamed, of the uproar and
scandal inseparable from the old system of elections, and the Government
brought in a Bill to abolish the hustings and make the proceedings more
orderly, against which few voices would have been raised, had it not
contained provisions for voting by Ballot. The idea of secret voting was
repugnant to the national sense of what is fair and above-board; but the
Bill eventually got through the House of Commons, though shorn, at the
instance of Mr. Vernon Harcourt and Mr. James (now Lord James of
Hereford), of the provisions for throwing the expenses of elections on
the rates. The measure was rejected by the House of Lords, but the
Government succeeded in passing it during the session of 1872. The
result upon the balance of parties in the House of Commons has been
singularly small, and certainly the Conservatives, who had most reason
to dread the effect of secret voting on the fortunes of their party,
have had no reason to complain of the result.
[Illustration: _Sydney P. Hall._} {_From the Royal Collection._
MARRIAGE OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS LOUISE TO THE MARQUIS OF
LORNE, K.T., AT ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOR, March 21, 1871.
The officiating clergy are the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Oxford,
and the Dean of Windsor. Next the bride on the left is the Queen, then
the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Princess of
Wales and her two sons, and other members of the Royal Family. The
bridegroom is supported by Earl Percy and Lord Ronald Gower, behind whom
are the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, his parents. Mr. Disraeli is in the
right hand corner of the picture, and Mr. Gladstone sits in the centre
of the same row.]