1. Why has Ireland menaced the peace of England for more than a century? 2. What events led up to the organization of the "Young Ireland" Society? 3. What results had the Irish famine of 1846? 4. Describe the Fenian agitations. 5. Give an account of the early career of Gladstone. 6. What two important books did he write on church affairs? 7. What view did he take of the Anti-Corn Law bill? 8. How did he clash with Disraeli on the reform movement of 1866? 9. To what three grievances of Ireland did he devote himself? 10. Describe the events connected with the disestablishment of the Irish church. 11. What did he secure to Ireland by the Land Act of 1870? 12. What other reforms were carried through about the same time? 13. What did he accomplish by his letters on the "Bulgarian Atrocities?" 14. What difficulties beset his attempts at reform in Ireland in 1880-85? 15. How did the policy of Gladstone's cabinet toward the Boers and General Gordon weaken its influence? 16. How did the Irish wing of Parliament make itself fell under the new Conservative cabinet? 17. Describe Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 and its defeat? 18. What new attempt at Home Rule was made in 1893, and with what result ? 19. Sum up the chief services of Gladstone to his countrymen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LIFE OF W. E. GLADSTONE. Justin McCarthy. LIFE OF
GLADSTONE. G.W.E. Russell. W
ILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. James Bryce.
A DIARY OF THE HOME RULE PARLIAMENT. Henry W. Lucy.
YOUNG IRELAND. C. G. Duffy.
DANIEL O'CONNELL. J.A. Hamilton.
HISTORY OF LEGISLATIVE UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
IRELAND. T. D. Ingram.
XI
BEACONSFIELD AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE
[BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Earl of Beaconsfield; born, London, December 21, 1804; died, London, April 19, 1881; baptized in the Church of England, 1817; privately educated; studied law in a solicitor's office, 1821-24; 1825, published his first novel "Vivian Grey"; 1830-31, traveled in Europe and the Levant; his novel "Contarini Fleming" attracts notice 1832; after defeats becomes Member of Parliament for Maidstone 1837; marries Mrs. Wyndham Lewis 1839; leads the "Protectionist" attack on Peel 1846; leader of opposition 1849-52, 1852-58, 1859-66, 1868-74; Chancellor of Exchequer 1852, 1858-59, 1866-68; Premier 1868, 1874-80.]
The expansion of the English domain by discovery and colonization or by war and conquest has been one of the distinguishing features of the nineteenth century. The movement may be said to have begun with the planting of the North American colonies two hundred years before. A century later the victories of Lord Clive and the administration of Warren Hastings, the empire-builder, laid a broad foundation for British dominion in India. Before the dawn of the nineteenth century the voyages of Captain James Cook in the South Pacific had opened new doors to Anglo-Saxon expansion in Australia, New Zealand, and the neighboring islands. In 1806 England wrested from the Dutch the sovereignty of Cape Colony at the southern extremity of Africa, the strategic half- way station on the main traveled sea-road to India and the East. Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, Aden, Singapore, and Hong Kong in the Far Eastern seas were acquired and fortified in order to protect British commerce. It could be said with truth that the sun never set upon the flag of England, and that the morning drum-beat of her garrisons saluted the sun in his daily journey around the world. At the close of the century the foreign possessions of Great Britain amounted in area to ten million square miles, and in population to three hundred and fifty million souls.
The problems which have sprung from this vast colonial empire have been among the most serious which English statesmen have been compelled to face. The colonies in America and Australia were English in blood, language, and institutions. In South Africa a large proportion of the inhabitants were Dutch "Boers," transferred without their consent and against their will to a foreign sovereignty. In India and Burma the English established their authority and maintained it by force of arms over teeming native populations of another race and religion. How to hold together an empire so vast and various; how to adapt administrative methods to its novel and changing needs; how, if possible, to organize the incongruous multitude of dependencies, colonies, and protected states into some sort of federal empire— these are among the newer problems of British statesmanship.
Americans know how imperfectly the ministers of George III. were prepared to deal with such problems, and how their blundering resulted in the independence of the United States. The lesson of 1776 has not been forgotten, as the history of England's conciliatory policy toward Canada and the Australasian commonwealth abundantly testifies. Lord Tennyson's verses, written in the year of the Queen's jubilee, give expression to the altered relation of the mother-country toward her colonial offspring:
"Britain fought her sons of yore,
Britain failed; and nevermore,
Careless of our growing kin,
Shall we sin our fathers' sin;
Men that in a narrower day -
Unprophetic rulers they-
Drove from out the eagle's nest
That young eagle of the West
To forage for herself alone;
Britons, hold your own!
"Sharers of our glorious past,
Brothers, must we part at last?
Shall we not thro' good and ill
Cleave to one another still?
Britain's myriad voices call,
Sons be welded each and all
Into one imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart, and soul!
One life, one fleet, one flag, one throne!
Britons, hold your own."