Sixty Years a Queen Part 28

[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 Const.i.tution; 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 canva.s.sing 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 impa.s.sioned 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 pa.s.sed its second reading by a majority of thirty-three, and received the Royal a.s.sent 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.

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 grat.i.tude 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 ma.s.ses of arrears acc.u.mulated, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _W. H. Mason._} {_From a Print at the Oval._

CRICKET IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REIGN.

Suss.e.x _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 cla.s.s, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sociation 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 pa.s.s 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.

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 pa.s.sing 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 d.u.c.h.ess 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.]

CHAPTER XIV.

1870-1880.

The Franco-German War--Russia seizes her Opportunity--The Irish University Bill--Defeat and Resignation of Ministers--Mr.

Gladstone resumes Office--Dissolution of Parliament--Conservative Victory--The Ashanti War--Mr.

Disraeli's Third Administration--Mr. Gladstone Retires from the Leadership--Annexation of the Fiji Islands--Purchase of Suez Ca.n.a.l Shares--Visit of the Prince of Wales to India--The Queen's New t.i.tle--Threatening Action of Russia--The Bulgarian Ma.s.sacres--Disraeli becomes Earl of Beaconsfield--The Russo-Turkish War--Great Britain Prepares to Defend Constantinople--Secession of Lord Carnarvon and Lord Derby--The "Jingo" Party--The Berlin Congress and Treaty--"Peace with Honour"--Ma.s.sacre at Cabul--War with Afghanistan--The Zulu War--Disaster of Isandhlana.

[Sidenote: The Franco-German War.]

[Sidenote: Russia Seizes her Opportunity.]

The hurricane which, breaking over Western Europe in the summer of 1870, had swept away the Imperial Dynasty of France before the close of the year, was not felt in Great Britain with any alarming effect. Nothing occurred seriously to endanger her neutrality; she was enjoying a period of commercial prosperity strangely in contrast to the savage strife beyond the sea, until a sudden and ominous act on the part of the Russian Government redoubled the anxious vigilance of Her Majesty's Government. The Treaty of Paris had established the neutrality of the Black Sea, throwing open its waters to the mercantile marine of all nations, and interdicting them to the flag of war, "either of the Powers possessing its coasts, or of any other Power." By this provision Russia now proclaimed she would no longer be bound. She could not have chosen a better opportunity for her own purpose. The Western Alliance was dislocated; two of the signatories to the Treaty of Paris were engaged in mortal strife; a third--Austria--could not be expected to take action independently of Prussia; was it inc.u.mbent on Great Britain--the fourth Power--to vindicate, single-handed, the sanct.i.ty of the treaty? Few responsible people could be found to contemplate seriously such a course; yet it was peculiarly galling to the national pride to have to acquiesce in the action of Russia. Lord Granville proposed a conference of the Powers to be held in London, and the proposal was accepted. The Conference met on January 17, 1872, and solemnly proceeded to abrogate that which they were in no position to maintain--the neutralisation of the Black Sea. Reflection on the situation of Europe at that time can lead to no other conclusion but that Great Britain was sagaciously steered without loss of honour through a very difficult channel; but none the less unfavourable to the Government was the impression created at the time, that the country had suffered a degree of humiliation in permitting a treaty which had cost her so dear to be torn up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Hughes & Mullins, Ryde._

HER MAJESTY WITH THE PRINCESS BEATRICE.

April 1871.]