There were other minor but still important changes in other departments. It was provided that the right to hold the position of commissioned or higher officers in the army should be given by open examination, and not be bought as hitherto. All students, without distinction as to religious creed, were admitted to the privileges of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Voters were protected in the exercise of their rights by the introduction of the Ballot, or system of secret voting. The country now seemed to be tired of reform for a time, and the Gladstone ministry was overthrown.
During the period of which we treat, though we had no great war, we had a number of small conflicts. The series of quarrels with China may be said to have terminated with our conquest of Pekin in 1860. In 1869 the conduct of King John of Abyssinia, in unlawfully imprisoning English subjects, compelled us to send an expedition to rescue them, which it successfully accomplished; and in 1873 we were obliged to send another expedition against King Koffee of Ashanti, on the West African coast, who attacked our allies. This expedition was also a complete success, as we forced our foes to agree to a peace advantageous for us.
In addition may be recorded the successful laying of the Atlantic cable (1866), after nine years of vain endeavour; the passing of an act (1867), under which British North America is all, except Newfoundland, now federally united in the vast Dominion of Canada, with a constitution like that of the mother-country; and the purchase by government of the telegraph system (1868).
On the fall of the Gladstone ministry in 1874, a Conservative one, under Mr Disraeli (afterwards Lord Beaconsfield), came into power, and for some years managed the national affairs.
During these years, several important measures affecting the foreign affairs of our empire were carried out. We purchased a large number of shares in the French company which owns the Suez Canal. British ships going to India pass through that canal, and therefore it was considered by our rulers that it would be for our advantage to have a good deal to do with the management of the company. In India, since the suppression of the Mutiny, and abolition of the East India Company, the Queen had the direct rule. She was in 1876 declared Empress of that country.
In 1877, Russia went to war with Turkey on questions connected with the treatment of the Christian subjects of the Sultan. Our government was opposed to many things in the conduct of the Russians in the matter, and at one time it seemed very likely that a war between us and them would take place. All matters in dispute, however, were arranged in a satisfactory manner at a Congress held at Berlin in 1878.
Then came another Afghan war, its object being the exclusion of Russian influence from Cabul, and such an extension of our Indian frontier as should henceforth render impossible the exclusion of British influence. In September 1878 the Ameer, Shere Ali, Dost Mohammed's son and successor, refused admission to a British envoy: his refusal was treated as an insolent challenge, and our peaceful mission became a hostile invasion. There was some sharp fighting in the passes; but Jellalabad was ours by the end of December, and Candahar very soon afterwards. Shere Ali died early in 1879; and his son, Yakoob Khan, the new Ameer, in May signed the treaty of Gandamak, conceding the 'scientific frontier' and all our other demands. Every one was saying how well and easily the affair had been managed, when tidings reached us of a great calamity—the murder, on 3d September, at Cabul, of our envoy, Sir Louis Cavagnari, with almost all his small escort. The treaty, of course, became so much wastepaper; but no time was lost in avenging the outrage, for after more fighting, Cabul was occupied by General Roberts in the second week of October. The war went on in a desultory fashion, till in July 1880 we recognised a new Ameer in Abdurrahman, heretofore a Russian pensioner, and a grandson of Dost Mohammed. That same month a British brigade was cut to pieces near Candahar; but, starting from Cabul at the head of 10,000 picked troops, General Roberts in twenty-three days marched 318 miles, relieved Candahar's garrison, and won the battle of Mazra. Already our forces had begun to withdraw from the country, and Candahar was evacuated in 1881. A peaceful British mission was undertaken in the autumn of 1893, when various matters regarding the frontier of Afghanistan were dealt with.
[Illustration: Earl Roberts. (From a Photograph by Poole, Waterford.)]
In 1877 we annexed the Dutch Transvaal Republic; the republic was restored under British suzerainty. In 1879 we invaded the Zulus' territory. On 11th January Lord Chelmsford crossed the Natal frontier; on the 22d the Zulus surrounded his camp, and all but annihilated its garrison. The heroic defence of Rorke's Drift, by 80 against 4000, saved Natal from a Zulu invasion; but it was not till July that the campaign was ended by the victory of Ulundi. The saddest event in all the war was the death of the French Prince Imperial, who was serving with the British forces. He was out with a small reconnoitring party, which was surprised by a band of Zulus; his escort mounted and fled; and he was found next morning dead, his body gashed with eighteen assegai wounds. The Zulu king, Cetewayo, was captured in August, and sent a prisoner to Cape Town. Zululand was divided amongst twelve chieftains; but in 1883, after a visit to England, Cetewayo was reinstated in the central part of his kingdom. It was not so easy to set him up again; in 1884 he died a fugitive, overthrown by one of his rivals.
Two very notable men passed away in 1881—Thomas Carlyle, author of The French Revolution, and Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Born in 1804, Disraeli entered parliament in 1837, the year of the Queen's accession. His first speech, though clever enough, was greeted with shouts of laughter, till, losing patience, he cried, almost shouted: 'I have begun several things many times, and have often succeeded at last; ay, and though I sit down now, the time will come when you will hear me.' In nine years that time did come. From the hour of his onslaught on Sir Robert Peel in the Corn-Law debate of 22d January 1846, be became the leader of the Tory party.