THE WHITE DRAWING-ROOM, WINDSOR CASTLE.
country had increased, and pauperism had diminished. All these cheering facts were concealed from the public by the Conservative agitators, who concentrated attention on one point—the admitted and deplorable distress of the landed interest. The real desire of the Tory party at this time was to turn out the Government and restore Protection. The Duke of Richmond’s indiscreet speech on the Address in the House of Lords proves that. But, conscious of the difficulty of suddenly upsetting the fiscal system which was based on Free Trade, they concealed their real purpose. Mr. Disraeli therefore supported a Protectionist amendment to the Address in reply to the Queen’s Speech, on the ground that the landed interests were entitled to a certain amount of relief from public burdens, in compensation for the loss of Protection. On the 19th of February, Mr. Disraeli had to show his hand. He then moved for a committee to revise the Poor Law so as to mitigate distress among the agricultural class. This debate is worth noticing, because it may be said to have definitely originated the perennial movement for local taxation reform, which is always an object of enthusiasm to what may be called the country party, when out of office. Mr. Disraeli’s idea was to transfer from local rates to the Imperial Treasury (1), Poor Law establishment charges; (2), rates which had nothing to do with the relief of the poor, and were only raised by
THE PIRÆUS, ATHENS.
Poor Law machinery as a matter of convenience—such as rates for registration of births, deaths, and marriages, for getting up jury lists, and the like; and (3), the rate for supporting the casual poor. His case was not decided on its merits. Members did not look to what was in the motion, but to what was behind it, namely, the restoration of Protection, or an increase in Income Tax to provide funds for the relief of local burdens. Sir James Graham’s frank admission, as a landlord, that relief in the rate would be swallowed by an increase in the rents, and that it was the landlord and not the tenant who would profit, determined many, who did not deny the abstract justice of Mr. Disraeli’s contention, to vote against him. The sensational incident in the debate was the speech of Mr. Gladstone, who supported Mr. Disraeli against his own leaders. In fact, he replied to Sir James Graham. Despite the support of Peel, the Government, instead of having a majority of forty, as they expected, were saved from defeat only by a majority of twenty. From that day till now a clever debater, by a skilful motion in favour of relief of local taxation, has always been able to weaken the majority of the strongest of Ministries. Local taxation is the vulnerable point of Governments, and it is the one subject with which they all seem afraid to deal in a bold and comprehensive spirit. All they do is to denounce the evil in Opposition, and palliate its existence when in Power.
The agitation for Parliamentary Reform had increased. Some of the Peelites, notably Sir J. Graham, had warned Lord John Russell that they were in favour of an extension of the franchise, and Lord John himself had abandoned the doctrine of finality. Mr. Hume, therefore, brought forward his annual motion on the 28th of February, hinting plainly that he would have no objection to extend its scope so as to include female franchise, and the substitution of an elective for a hereditary House of Lords. It was quite certain that Lord John Russell was by this time of opinion that some safe concessions might be made to the Radicals. Several of his colleagues, however—e.g., Mr. Labouchere—were of a different opinion, and it is accordingly right to say that those who denounced Lord John’s “apostasy,” when he opposed Mr. Hume, were somewhat unfair. Had the Prime Minister produced a Reform Bill this Session, every question which it might be possible to deal with would have been put aside. But as he was not likely to carry his own colleagues with him in advocating reform, not only would this sacrifice have been made in vain, but a Government which, in the existing state of parties, was indispensable to the nation, would have fallen. Mr. Hume was beaten by a vote of 242 against 96, though the Prime Minister’s argument against him was rather a plea for delay, than a defiant “Non possumus.”
Writing on the 10th of February, Mr. Greville says in his Journal, “The brightness of the Ministerial prospect was very soon clouded over, and last week their disasters began. There was first of all the Greek affair, and then the case of the Ceylon witnesses—matters affecting Lord Palmerston and Lord Grey”—the Jonahs of the Cabinet. “The Greek case,” continues Mr. Greville, “will probably be settled, thanks to French mediation, but it was a bad and discreditable affair, and has done more harm to Palmerston than any of his greater enormities. The other Ministers are extremely annoyed at it, and at the sensation it has produced.” The Greek case was briefly this: Mr. Finlay, a British subject in Athens, alleged that King Otho had enclosed a bit of his land in the Royal Garden, and demanded compensation. The King offered him the same compensation that had been accepted as fair by other owners of enclosed land in Mr. Finlay’s position. This Mr. Finlay refused, and he demanded £1,500 for the land which, it was admitted, he had bought for £10. Don Pacifico, a Portuguese Jew from Gibraltar, sought damages for the pillage of his house by the Athenian mob. He claimed £31,534. The value of his furniture was shown to be £2,181. The balance was supposed to represent the value of documents proving that he had a claim on the Portuguese Government for £27,000. Mr. Finlay and Don Pacifico had not raised their claims in the ordinary law courts, and to the amazement of everybody, Lord Palmerston proposed to employ the mailed might of England to collect their bad debts. He peremptorily ordered the Greek Government to pay these exaggerated claims, on pain of inflicting on Greece a blockade and reprisals within twenty-four hours. On the 18th of January, Admiral Parker, with the Mediterranean Fleet, blockaded the Piræus—for, contrary to Lord Palmerston’s expectations, Greece refused to comply with his demands. The Greek Government appealed for protection to France and Russia—whose Governments being with that of Britain joint guarantors for the independence of Greece, were justly annoyed that their good offices had not been invoked by Lord Palmerston. Count Nesselrode, burning to avenge the defeat of the Czar over the question of the Hungarian refugees in Turkey, sent a remonstrance to Lord Palmerston, which was couched in the language of bitter contempt and studied insolence. The French Government, on the other hand, pretending that our agent in Athens had blundered, courteously offered to extricate Lord Palmerston from his difficulties by using the influence of France, to compose the dispute with Greece. On the 12th of February Lord Palmerston ordered the British Envoy to inform Admiral Parker that he must suspend coercive operations. It was not till the 2nd of March that these instructions arrived, and in the interval the Admiral had been vigorously coercing the Greeks. France was naturally irritated at this untoward incident, all the more that Lord Palmerston’s explanation of the delay was deemed unsatisfactory. Ultimately, the matter was settled on Greece agreeing to pay Mr. Wyse, the British Minister, £8,500 to be distributed by him as he thought just among the claimants—the value of Don Pacifico’s lost vouchers against the Portuguese Government to be determined by arbitration.
This compromise, however, was made by negotiation in London. A French steamer conveyed the purport of it to Mr. Wyse, the British Envoy at Athens, on the 24th of April. He, however, said that he had no instructions from his Government to countermand his original orders, which were to renew coercion if the French Envoy at Athens could not induce the Greeks to submit. Coercion was therefore again applied, and the Greek Government on the 27th submitted to Mr. Wyse’s demands. These were more onerous in some respects than the terms agreed on by the London Convention, and Lord Palmerston persisted in adhering to the Athenian arrangement. M. Gros at Athens, finding he could not persuade Mr. Wyse to act on the London Convention, had on the 21st of April officially intimated that his action as mediator was ended. This, argued Lord Palmerston coolly, left the British Envoy—in the absence of instructions from England—free to renew coercion, and to enter into the Athenian arrangement. Palmerston, in other words, claimed the right to take advantage of his own delay, in notifying to Mr. Wyse the result of the London Convention, to refuse to act on the finding of that Convention. It is but fair to say that the Queen was quite as indignant as the Government of France, at Lord Palmerston’s rude and provocative conduct. Lord John Russell intimated to her the fact that the French Government had met the affront with which Lord Palmerston had rewarded their efforts to extricate him from the effect of his own blunder, by recalling M. Drouyn de Lhuys. Her Majesty promptly directed her husband, who acted as her confidential secretary, to send the Prime Minister one of those curt, cutting notes, which invariably indicate her displeasure.