Sixty Years a Queen Part 29

[Sidenote: The Irish University Bill.]

[Sidenote: Defeat and Resignation of Ministers.]

But Mr. Gladstone, full of serious purpose, was blind to the symptoms of failing prestige--indifferent to the warning conveyed by loss of successive seats at by-elections. He had dealt with two limbs of the upas-tree; there remained the third--that of Irish education, and he bared his arms to attack it. On February 13 he introduced a Bill dealing with the Irish Universities. It was a masterly measure, a scheme of extraordinary complexity, dealing with a very complicated and unsatisfactory state of things. It is not necessary to examine its details at this time; it is, perhaps, enough to say that the Prime Minister's plan was one that, while it offended and alarmed every one deriving benefit from the existing state of things, failed to satisfy any of the religious bodies--Protestant, Catholic, or Nonconformist--which desired a change. Disraeli's words spoken on the second reading came home to many hearts on both sides of the House. "You have now had four years of it," he said. "You have despoiled churches; you have threatened every corporation and endowment in the country. You have examined into everybody's affairs. You have criticised every profession and vexed every trade. No one is certain of his property, and n.o.body knows what duties he may have to perform to-morrow. I believe that the people of this country have had enough of confiscation." The Bill was rejected by a majority of three votes, and Mr. Gladstone resigned office; but, on the Queen sending for Mr. Disraeli, he declined to form "a weak and discredited Administration," and the Government resumed its functions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sir J. Tenniel._} {_From "Punch."_

CRITICS.

Mr. Gladstone: "H'm, flippant!"

Mr. Disraeli: "Ha, prosy!"

Mr. Disraeli's "Lothair" and Mr. Gladstone's "Juventus Mundi" appeared almost simultaneously in 1870.]

[Sidenote: General Election.]

Ministers were in an unenviable position. The increasing bitterness of parties had brought about a disregard of those unwritten laws which had contributed so much in the past to the amenity of public life and to earning for the House of Commons the character of being "the best club in London." There were bitter dissensions among Ministers themselves, of which Lord Ripon and Mr. Childers gave evidence by leaving the Cabinet.

In four years the Conservatives had gained fifteen seats in by-elections, against which Ministerialists could only set two captured from the enemy. Still, the Government could reckon on a majority of ninety in the House of Commons, and no one dreamt of their appealing to the country while all the omens remained adverse. Nevertheless, Mr.

Gladstone startled everybody by issuing a manifesto, in January 1874, announcing the dissolution of Parliament. Never did a politician play more completely into his opponent's hands, though the Conservatives went to the polls full of misgiving about the effect of the new-fangled Ballot. The result proved that their fears were unfounded. The followers of Mr. Disraeli in the new Parliament outnumbered those of Mr. Gladstone by half a hundred.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _N. Chevalier._} {_From the Royal Collection._

THE PROCESSION ON THE OCCASION OF THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE AT ST. PAUL'S FOR THE RECOVERY OF H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES Pa.s.sING LUDGATE CIRCUS, February 1872.

His Royal Highness had been seized with typhoid fever in November 1871, and for several days in the early part of December his life was despaired of. Her Majesty and the other members of the Royal Family were twice summoned to Sandringham, where he was being nursed by the Princess of Wales and Princess Alice of Hesse.]

[Sidenote: The Ashanti War.]

The closing months of Mr. Gladstone's Administration were marked by a short war on the Gold Coast, arising out of a dispute with Koffee Calcalli, King of Ashanti, who had claimed a tribute formerly paid to him by the Dutch for some territory which they sold to Great Britain in 1872. Failing to obtain acknowledgment of his claim, the King of Ashanti attacked the Fantis, a tribe under British protection, and it became necessary to chastise him. The difficulty of doing so lay, not in the character of the people of Ashanti, for, though brave and warlike, they could not stand before modern arms of precision, but in the nature of the climate and the difficulty of transport. The campaign had to be limited to the cool season; it was entrusted to Sir Garnet Wolseley, who well sustained the reputation he had earned in the Red River Expedition in 1870. The Expedition left England on September 12, 1873, and returned on March 21, 1874, having in the interval captured and destroyed Cooma.s.sie, the capital, brought the King to terms, and laid a perpetual interdict on the hideous human sacrifices which formed one of his most cherished inst.i.tutions. The Ashanti warriors defended their forest roads gallantly, and the British loss was heavy in proportion to the numbers engaged. The total cost of this Expedition was reckoned at a little short of one million sterling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Orlando Norrie_} {_From the Royal Collection._

THE ASHANTI WAR: THE 42ND HIGHLANDERS CROSSING THE OMDALI.]

[Sidenote: Mr. Disraeli's Third Administration.]

The new Ministry was formed with unexampled celerity. Mr. Gladstone, accepting the verdict of the country, did not attempt to meet the new Parliament, but resigned on February 18, 1874. Three days later the Queen had approved of the names submitted to her by Mr. Disraeli for all the offices in the Government, both in the Cabinet and outside it. Lord Salisbury, sometimes known then as "the terrible Marquis," and Lord Carnarvon, both of whom had seceded in 1867 on the question of the franchise, resumed their former seats at the India and Colonial Offices respectively. The Liberal party were languishing in that political anaemia which follows on overwhelming defeat, when they received an additional blow in the retirement of Mr. Gladstone from the leadership.

Some hard things were said about one who thus abandoned his party at the lowest ebb of their fortunes, and uncomplimentary contrasts were drawn between him and Disraeli, who had cheered his followers by his constant presence in adversity which seemed irredeemable. After some months of indecision, during which the Liberal leadership was administered by a kind of _junta_, the Marquis of Hartington a.s.sumed the thankless task of leading the deserted and dispirited Opposition, an office made all the more difficult by the occasional raids upon the debates made by Mr.

Gladstone as often as some subject which specially interested him turned up, such as the Public Worship Bill, and the Bill abolishing patronage in the Church of Scotland.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Orlando Norrie_} {_From the Royal Collection._

THE ASHANTI WAR: THE ENTRY INTO COOMa.s.sIE, February 4, 1874.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _N. Chevalier._} {_From the Royal Collection._

MARRIAGE OF H.R.H. THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH AND THE GRAND-d.u.c.h.eSS MARIE OF RUSSIA AT THE WINTER PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG, January 23, 1874.

View of the interior of the chapel of the Winter Palace. The bride and bridegroom are standing before the altar, and over them the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg elevates the cross. The Emperor and Empress of Russia stand together against the great piers supporting the dome, and near them are the Czarewitch with his wife, the Princess Dagmar, and the Princess of Wales, her sister. In the foreground are the Prince of Wales and the Crown Prince of Prussia, and among others present are the Crown Princess of Prussia, the Crown Prince of Denmark, Prince Arthur, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and a long train of Grand Dukes and n.o.bles.]

[Sidenote: Annexation of the Fiji Islands.]

Mr. Disraeli was not new to office, but he found himself in power for the first time. With a good working majority behind him in the House of Commons, a helpless Opposition before him, and a surplus of six millions at the Treasury, the natural question in everybody's mouth was "What will he do with it?" There were still many of his own party who mistrusted his love of display and his magnificent conception of empire as likely to impel him along some hazardous course of conquest abroad or legislation at home, but their apprehensions were soon allayed. In leading the House, Disraeli exchanged his formidable gifts of invective for a manner and speech conciliatory to men of all parties. The domestic programme of the Government for the sessions of 1874 and 1875 was unambitious but useful, and the only extension of British dominion abroad was the peaceful annexation of the Fiji Islands at the request of King Cakobau and his council.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Hon. John Collier._} {_By permission of the Linnean Society._

CHARLES R. DARWIN, LL.D., 1809-1882.

Naturalist. Born at Shrewsbury; educated there and at Edinburgh and Cambridge. His researches into the "Origin of Species," "The Descent of Man," &c., have revolutionized modern ideas on these subjects.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph by Mayall, Piccadilly._

PROFESSOR SIR RICHARD OWEN, 1804-1892.

Naturalist, and one of the greatest authorities on comparative anatomy and osteology. First Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons (1836), and first Superintendent (1856-1883) of the Natural History Department of the British Museum, now housed in the building here shown, in the arrangement of which he was greatly interested. It was said of him that he could describe any animal from a single bone.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON.

Built in 1873-1880 from designs by Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., at a cost of 352,000.]

[Sidenote: Suez Ca.n.a.l Shares.]

But towards the end of 1875 there came the occasion for the display of some spirit, in which may be traced the beginning of reaction against the "Little Britain" school of politicians. When a singular opportunity presented itself of strengthening our communications with the East, Disraeli fearlessly seized it. The Suez Ca.n.a.l had been open since 1869, and Great Britain, though she was the Power which made most use of it, had no pecuniary interest in it. The funds necessary for the work had been subscribed almost entirely by the Egyptian Government and by private speculators in France. Of the 400,000 original shares, the Khedive of Egypt held 176,000; but the Khedive's expenditure had been for years far beyond his revenues, and his shares were thrown upon the market in 1875. Disraeli was struck by the proposition advanced by Mr.

Greenwood, a journalist of some note, that these shares should be bought by the British Government, and the purchase was completed on November 25, the price paid being 4,000,000. Sir Stafford Northcote, on whom fell the duty of asking Parliament for the money, was opposed to his chief's policy in this matter, and must have felt some misgiving in repelling the attacks made upon it by the Liberals, but he did so effectively. Mr. Gladstone emerged from his retirement to fling himself into the debate, and declared that to spend the national funds in such an object was "an unprecedented thing";--"So is the Ca.n.a.l!" retorted Northcote. It is only just to Disraeli's statesmanship to notice what an excellent investment, in a monetary sense, was made for Great Britain by the purchase of these shares. The original sum of four millions has been entirely paid off out of income derived from the shares, which, for a number of years, have been paying from 17 to 21 per cent. The shares purchased have risen in value from four to eighteen millions, and the proportion of British tonnage to the whole tonnage of all nations using the Ca.n.a.l is 75 per cent. It would, however, be claiming too much for Disraeli's commercial ac.u.men to suppose that he realised what should become the ultimate monetary value of these shares. What he perceived was the importance of Great Britain acquiring a voice in the management of the new and dominant highway to India. The public had received recently the means of estimating the stupendous responsibility resting on the shoulders of those charged with the administration of British India. The results of the first census ever taken there were published in 1875, showing the total population of the British dominion in India to consist of twenty-three distinct nationalities, amounting to 190,563,048 souls--nearly five times that of the United Kingdom. This did much to dispel an idea dimly present in the minds even of educated persons, that the Queen's Indian subjects consisted of one dusky race, speaking one language and divided into two religions--Mahomedan and Hindoo.

[Sidenote: The Prince of Wales Visits India.]

[Sidenote: The Queen's New t.i.tle.]

It was a congenial duty for the Prime Minister, entertaining these lofty views of the burden and glory of empire, to ask the House of Commons to vote 142,000 to defray the expenses of a visit about to be paid by the Prince of Wales to India. His Royal Highness had already visited the princ.i.p.al Colonies, but the customs of Oriental Courts, the ceremony and display considered indispensable, and, above all, the necessity for exchanging costly presents with the various Princes, rendered the expenses far beyond what any ordinary tour would involve. The money was cheerfully voted, for the public approved of the energy shown by the heir to the Crown in acquiring a personal acquaintance with all parts of the British Empire. There was less unanimity in the reception of the next important proposal of the Government, made after the Prince's return from India in 1876, namely, to supply such addition to the t.i.tles of the Sovereign as had been rendered appropriate by her a.s.sumption, in 1858, of the direct government of India.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A. Stuart Worthy._} {_By permission of Messrs. Graves._

H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES, K.G.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _G. F. Watts, R.A._} {_In the National Portrait Gallery._

EDWARD ROBERT, FIRST EARL OF LYTTON,

1831-1891.

Only son of Lord Lytton, the novelist. Viceroy of India, 1876-1880; Amba.s.sador to France, 1887-1891. Known in literature as "Owen Meredith."]

[Sidenote: The Bulgarian Ma.s.sacres.]