CHAPTER XLIII.
THE LAST YEARS OF QUEEN VICTORIA, 1886-1901—THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, 1899-1902.
In August, 1886, Lord Salisbury took office, with the most powerful majority at his back that any minister had enjoyed since the days of Lord Grey and the Reform Bill. He was supported by 316 Conservatives and aided by 78 Liberal Unionists, while the Gladstonian Liberals had shrunk to 191, so that the Parnellites with their 85 votes no longer had the balance of power in their hands.
Some political prophets had expected that the return of a majority pledged to resist Home Rule to the death would render the situation in Ireland more hopeless than ever, and lead to a general outburst of riot and assassination. The reverse was the case. A distinct improvement was perceptible after the fall of the Gladstone ministry, and in 1887-8 matters began to quiet down. The Parnellites indeed tried to embitter matters by a scheme called the "Plan of Campaign," by which the peasantry were to refuse to pay more rent than they thought proper. But it failed, and a stringent Coercion Bill, passed in July, 1887, did much to repress disorder. A Land Bill which accompanied the Coercion Act was less successful; it pleased neither landlords nor tenants, and had no appreciable result, good or bad. But on the whole, Mr. Arthur Balfour, the new Secretary for Ireland, had a far more prosperous career than any of his predecessors. He was one of the very few politicians who gained rather than lost credit while holding the unenviable post now assigned to him.
In 1887 the Irish question began at last to recede into the background, and ceased to monopolize public attention. In that year occurred the Queen's first Jubilee (June 21); the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of her accession was taken as the opportunity for a great imperial pageant, in which representatives drawn not only from the United Kingdom, but from India and all the colonies, did homage to their admirable sovereign. The display of respect and love for the Queen, reported from every corner of her dominions, showed that the crown, when placed on a worthy head, might be not the least of the links which bind the empire together.
Foreign politics during the first Salisbury administration sometimes looked threatening, but never reached any dangerous crisis. There was occasional friction with France concerning the question of Egypt; Mr. Gladstone had unwisely promised to evacuate that country when peace was restored, and the French Government repeatedly hinted that the time had arrived. Fortunately, the continued existence of the Mahdi's savage hordes on the Upper Nile, and their frequent attempts to penetrate down stream, supplied a sufficient reason for the continuation of the British protectorate, and the retention of the British garrison. But with Germany our relations were also sometimes very delicate. This was due to that wholesale annexation of unoccupied corners of the earth, which was the main feature of German colonial policy between 1885 and 1891. The regions (generally most uninviting in character) which Germany annexed were in close proximity to old British settlements both in Africa and Australasia, and lay in some cases in quarters where British influence had hitherto been paramount. Much friction ensued, and ultimately (as we shall see in our colonial chapter) complicated exchanges and delimitations of territory had to be carried out. This was the period in which we first discovered that Germany, no less than France, was for the future to be a rival in colonial expansion.
Meanwhile continental politics were suffering radical changes, which had to be carefully watched. With the death of the aged Emperor William of Germany in 1888, and the dismissal of Prince Bismarck from office in 1890, the old conditions of the balance of power in Europe were altered. The Czar Alexander III. was no friend to Germany, and the young Kaiser William II. did not share his grandfather's regard for Russia. For the "league of the three emperors" (Russia, Germany, Austria), which had been the predominant fact in the seventies and early eighties, there was substituted a new system of alliances. Germany and Austria took Italy into partnership, while Russia drew nearer to France, when it was seen that there was some stability in the republic—a fact that was not certain until the ridiculous fiasco of the theatrical adventurer General Boulanger in 1888. By 1891, in the later days of the first Salisbury ministry, this new arrangement of the powers of Europe was definitely established. It had for Great Britain the advantage that the two leagues balanced each other, and that it was unlikely that both at once would take a hostile attitude towards us. The wisdom of that policy of neutrality and of abstention from interference in purely continental affairs, which had long been our practice, became under the circumstances more obvious than ever. The danger for the future lay in colonial questions rather than in the internal politics of Europe.
The domestic policy of the Salisbury cabinet followed the lines that Lord Beaconsfield had laid down in 1874-80, the aim of the ministers being to show that the Conservative party could be as fruitful in measures of practical reform as their predecessors. To this period belong the Local Government Bill of 1888, creating the "County Councils," which have worked so well ever since, the Free Education Act of 1891, and the great conversion of the National Debt. By this latter measure Mr. Goschen, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, reduced the 3 per cent. interest on the National Debt to 2-3/4 per cent., paying off in ready money the few creditors of the nation who refused to accept the reduction. Thus £1,400,000 a year was saved, and the new stock, till the financial disturbance caused by the late South African war, was generally worth in the market more than the old 3 per cents.
Fall of Parnell.
The chief event in home politics during the later years of the Salisbury ministry, was the disappearance of Parnell, the dominating spirit of the Irish party for the last ten years. In 1889 he had triumphantly vindicated himself from a charge of having approved the Phœnix Park murders, and had obtained £5000 damages from the Times newspaper for having circulated the charge, on the authority of a forger named Piggott. But less than a year later he appeared as defendant, and not as plaintiff, in the law courts, in the unenviable capacity of co-respondent in a discreditable divorce case. The time has long gone by when a notorious evil liver can be accepted as the leader of a great party. Mr. Gladstone announced to the Irish members that they must depose their chief; the majority consented, but Parnell, supported by a few of his followers, refused to accept "British dictation," or to bow before the "Nonconformist conscience." The Irish party split up into the fiercely opposed factions of "Parnellites" and "Anti-Parnellites," whose abuse of each other did much to disgust their Liberal allies. Parnell himself died in 1891, but the schism continued and lasted for nearly ten years, destroying much of the power of the Home Rule movement and the Irish party.
Nine months after Parnell's death, Lord Salisbury dissolved Parliament (July, 1892). At the General Election which followed there was visible that "swing of the pendulum" which has usually been a feature of such times during the nineteenth century. An outgoing government has always offended some interests, and disappointed others. There are always a certain number of voters who think it fair "to give the other side a chance," and vote for the opposition, whoever may be the "ins" or the "outs." Though the Salisbury ministry had not been conspicuously unsuccessful at home or abroad, it found itself left in a minority when the elections were over.