Land of rare climate, stalwart men,
And pretty girls, and queer mammalia,
All England cries, through Punch's pen,
"Advance, Australia!"
The same year witnessed the starting of the Australian navy. "Naturally the biggest island in the world has the biggest coast-line, and so needs the biggest fleet." The lead was taken by Victoria. Punch saw nothing but healthy rivalry between the different colonies as the outcome of the movement, but looked to Federation as the true means to prevent the different Australian Colonies from being at "Southern Cross-purposes" when they all had their navies. The trouble in the Soudan prompts a warning from the Shade of Gordon: "If you mean to send help, do it thoroughly and do it at once," but anxiety was allayed by the success of General Grenfell at Suakin, an example of prompt action worthy of the attention of "long-halting statesmen."
Parnell and "The Times"
The most important measure of the Session at Westminster was the Local Government Bill establishing County Councils. Punch made considerable capital out of Mr. Chamberlain's rapprochement to the Tory interests. At a meeting of the National Society, Archbishop Benson had referred amid cheers to the words of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain at the opening of a School Board in Birmingham, and his acknowledgment of the fact that Voluntary Schools must have their place in the education of the people recognized. Mr. Chamberlain's views on the Liquor question had shown a similar concession to the demands of the brewing trade. So Punch represents the "Artful Joe" walking arm-in-arm with the Archbishop and "Bung," and observing, "What a lot of nice friends I'm making." Mr. Chamberlain is already acknowledged to be "incomparably the best debater in the House"; Punch rendered full justice to his ability, but his chief cartoonist, Tenniel, though still capable of splendid work, never managed to seize and reproduce the alert vivacity of Mr. Chamberlain's features. The progress of the controversy between Mr. Parnell and The Times impelled Punch as an amicus curiæ to suggest that one or other of the disputants should wake up the Public Prosecutor in preference to the appointment of a Special Commission. The latter method of procedure, however, was adopted. The course of the inquiry was followed by Punch in a series of articles, and when Parnell was exculpated on the chief count by the breakdown of The Times witness Pigott, who confessed to forgery, fled the country and committed suicide, Punch exhibited the Clock-face doing penance in a white sheet with the lines, "His honour rooted in dishonour stood, etc." But when the Report of the Commission was finally published, Punch found it a veritable chameleon, which disappointed both sides, because most of those interested wore party-coloured spectacles or else were colour-blind.
England was visited in 1889 by two of the most perturbing personalities in European politics, the Kaiser Wilhelm II and General Boulanger. Punch, however, resolutely and, as it turned out, rightly refused to take the brav' Général seriously, though he found in him plenty of food for disparaging satire as a shoddy hero on his prancing steed, as a "General Boum" in real life (recalling the grotesque figure in La Grande Duchesse), and as an uninvited guest, whose unwelcome arrival John Bull took as an occasion for going off to the French Exhibition. In a burlesque cartoon on France's embarrassments in choosing the right form of Government, Punch exhibited President Carnot, the Comte de Paris, Prince Jerome Bonaparte ("Plon-Plon") and General Boulanger dancing a grotesque pas de quatre before the French Electorate. But Boulanger was already ended, though his death, by his own hand, did not take place till the autumn of 1891. His histrionic equipment was perfect, and the French, though the most logical of people, are often carried away by their theatrical sense. He had served with some distinction in the army, and he was a fine figure on a horse. But he lacked the inflexible will, the iron resolution and the ruthlessness which make Cæsars and Napoleons; and Punch's epitaph is a closely-packed summary of the forces and influences which conspired to his undoing:—
So high he floated, that he seemed to climb;