Sixty Years a Queen Part 26

Photographed from life on the day of the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _R. Lauchert._} {_From the Royal Collection._

H.R.H. THE PRINCESS OF WALES AT THE TIME OF HER MARRIAGE.]

It must be confessed that the Danes had not unreasonable grounds for believing they would not be left to meet such odds single-handed. Lord Russell had often warned the Danish Government that unless it respected the liberty of its German subjects, Denmark must look for no help from England in a conflict with the Germanic Powers. The Danes protested that they had scrupulously followed this advice, and there can be no doubt that they had been encouraged to look for the support of Great Britain if any attempt were made to infringe legitimate Danish authority, and that both Lord Russell and Lord Palmerston contemplated armed intervention between Denmark and her possible aggressors as a duty which Great Britain might have to undertake. But Great Britain had too much at stake to risk a conflict single-handed with Austria and Prussia, who, as Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Russell, "could bring 200,000 or 300,000 men into the field." England was not more bound by the Treaty of Vienna than France was; France refused to act, and England adopted the prudent, but apparently cold-blooded, part of looker-on. Public opinion in Great Britain ran pretty high in favour of the Danes, and many Englishmen felt ashamed of the part their country was made to play. They could not understand how Palmerston, of all men, could act so unhandsomely, and perhaps the only thing that saved the Government from defeat on a vote of censure, was that Disraeli, who moved it, shrank from advocating the only logical alternative to their policy--a declaration of war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MELBOURNE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Eyre and Spottiswoode._

THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE, MELBOURNE.

The first settlement on the site of the present city of Melbourne was made in 1836; it is now the largest city in Australia, with a population (1891) of 490,896. The Colony of Victoria, of which it is the capital, was separated from New South Wales in 1851, and received a self-governing const.i.tution in 1855. Population (1895), 1,181,769.

Imports (1895), 12,472,344. Exports (1895), 14,547,732.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Eyre and Spottiswoode._

THE TOWN HALL, AND PART OF COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE.]

[Sidenote: Dissolution of Parliament.]

The sixth Parliament of Queen Victoria was dissolved on July 6, 1865, having attained the unusual age of six years and thirty-six days. The chief feature of the general election which followed was the number of seats gained by the Radicals at the expense of the remnants of the Whig party or Moderate Liberals. Mr. Gladstone, reckoned as a Liberal-Conservative up to this time, though well known to be inclining more and more to the policy typified by John Bright, was unseated for Oxford University by Mr. Gathorne-Hardy (now Earl of Cranbrook), and the last tie which attached him to the Conservatives was severed by his subsequent election for South Lancashire.

Palmerston's appeal to the country had been answered by an expression of confidence in him, but that confidence was of a very complex kind. The Radicals voted for him, because, as long as he was in Parliament, no other man could lead the Liberal party; but they distrusted his foreign policy, and chafed at his indifference to questions of reform. The Liberals voted for him, because he represented exactly the views of moderate Liberalism; and the att.i.tude of many Conservatives was accurately expressed in a letter written by Mr. W. H. Smith, Liberal-Conservative candidate for Westminster, to Colonel Taylor, the Whip of the Conservative party, thanking him for the support he had received from Conservatives in his unsuccessful contest against Mr.

Mill. "I believe in Lord Palmerston," he said, "and look forward ultimately to a fusion of the moderate men following Lord Derby and Lord Palmerston into a strong Liberal-Conservative party."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, BRISBANE.]

[Sidenote: Death of Lord Palmerston.]

But the strong link which for so long had bound the present to the past, and acted as a check on precipitate legislation, snapped at last.

Palmerston died on October 18, 1865, aged eighty-one years, less two days, having sat in the House of Commons for fifty-eight years, which, as Mr. Cardwell observed, was just one-tenth of its whole existence. The feeling in the country was more profound than any which had been manifested since the death of Wellington. In the course of these pages no attempt has been made to palliate or conceal some of the errors of judgment, the faults of statesmanship, even the occasional want of sincerity to Parliament and the public which formed blemishes in his career, especially in the earlier part of the Queen's reign. In spite of these blots--and some of them were far from venial--he had lived to secure the confidence of his Sovereign and the affection of her people.

A great deal of this was owing to his personal character and manner and his kindly humour. It is no slight upon Scotsmen or Irishmen to say that the chief secret of his universal popularity was that he was such a thorough Englishman. Some of his sayings had a much deeper meaning than their tone of levity implied. Two of them will bear repet.i.tion here, seeing how accurately the lapse of years has fulfilled the prediction contained in them. Palmerston was known to be opposed to any further extension of the franchise. Somebody once observed to him that it really would not make much difference, for the same cla.s.s of member would be returned as before. "Yes," replied Palmerston, "the same men will get in as before, but they will play to the shilling gallery instead of to the boxes." The late Earl of Shaftesbury put on record one of Palmerston's latest sayings. Palmerston always distrusted Mr. Gladstone as a politician, and made no secret of it. But he always was extremely anxious for Mr. Gladstone's return for Oxford University. "He is a dangerous man," he said to Lord Shaftesbury: "keep him in Oxford, and he is partially muzzled, but send him elsewhere, and he will run wild."

This came to Mr. Gladstone's ears, so, after his defeat at Oxford in 1865, he opened his campaign in South Lancashire by saying to the electors a.s.sembled in the Free Trade Hall of Manchester: "At last, my friends, I have come amongst you.... I am come among you unmuzzled."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRISBANE.

The population of Brisbane increased between 1881 and 1891 from 31,000 to 93,000. Queensland, of which it is the capital, was separated from New South Wales and const.i.tuted a self-governing Colony in 1859. It had in 1895 a population of 460,550. Imports (1895), 5,349,007. Exports, 8,982,600.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sir E. Landseer, R.A._} {_By permission of Messrs.

Graves, Publishers of the large Engraving._

THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE, 1866.

On the seat are the Princesses Helena and Louise. Her Majesty is attended by John Brown.]

CHAPTER XIII.

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 n.o.body. 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 const.i.tuted 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociated 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.serting this right in a formal way, he intended to adjourn the meeting and claim redress by const.i.tutional 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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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.]