MDLLE. EUGENIA DE MONTIJO, AFTERWARDS EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH.
memories of his loyalty to the Bruce. His Majesty told the deputations from the Senate, the Legislative Body and the Council of State, that whilst it was his aim to place France once more within the pale of the old Monarchies, that result would be better attained by policy than by “Royal alliances, which create feelings of false security, and frequently substitute family interests for those of the nation.” Now, any dispute which engages Europe in diplomatic controversy that finally leads to war, is apt to produce fresh groupings of the Powers. An Imperial parvenu seeking for a respectable ally finds in these new groupings excellent opportunities for insinuating himself into “the pale of the old monarchies.” Hence the Emperor’s marriage was a sinister omen for England, because it was his fixed idea that England was the most profitable ally France could have. The Queen, however, on hearing that the Emperor’s marriage was a love match, imagined that his abandonment of an attempt to contract a Royal alliance gave additional force to his assurance at Bordeaux, on the 9th of October, 1852, that the “Empire was Peace,” and that under its guidance France was about to enter on a busy epoch of Industrialism. English Society approved of the marriage,[85] and the Press was loud in its praises of the Imperial pair.[86] Nobody, indeed, had the faintest suspicion at the time that war was in store for us—a war which gave the French Emperor that very alliance with England for which he was then scheming. But before describing the events that led up to the most disastrous calamity that darkens the Queen’s reign, it may be well to sketch briefly the chief points in the Home Policy of her Majesty’s Ministers during 1853.
It has been said that there were only two great projects in which the Queen interested herself during this year, filled, as it was, with distracting anxieties as to foreign affairs—the Budget and the India Government Bill. There was, however, a third: Lord John Russell’s scheme—unhappily abortive—for establishing a national system of public instruction.
Parliament met on the 10th of February, and Mr. Disraeli called Sir James Graham and Sir Charles Wood to account for speaking rudely of the French Emperor in their hustings addresses. Nothing came of his pungent attack, and public interest in politics was languid till April arrived, when Mr. Gladstone introduced his celebrated Budget—the first of a series that enabled him to divide with Sir Robert Peel the glory of being the greatest Finance Minister of the Victorian age.
Mr. Gladstone found that Mr. Disraeli, by under-estimating his revenue and over-estimating his expenditure, had left him with a surplus, not of £461,000, but of £2,307,000.[87] Unexpected military expenditure, due to dread of a French invasion, had reduced this surplus to £807,000. The primary feature in Mr. Gladstone’s Budget was the extension of the tax on personal property devised by will to real property, and also to personal property that passed by settlement. This, Mr. Gladstone reckoned, would ultimately bring in £2,000,000, and put him in a position to deal with the Income Tax, which came to an end in 1853. He proposed to continue the Income Tax at sevenpence in the pound for two years, then to reduce it to sixpence, and in three years after that to reduce it to fivepence. He extended the tax to Ireland, but, by way of compensation, remitted the debts which Ireland had recently incurred to the Imperial Treasury. He increased the duties on Scotch spirits from 3s. 5d. to 4s. 8d., and on Irish spirits from 2s. 8d. to 3s. 4d. a gallon, and thus, he reckoned, he had a surplus of £2,151,000 to spend. How did he spend it? He abolished the duty on soap, thereby terminating the last of the taxes on the four “necessaries”—salt, leather, and candles were the other three—which Adam Smith condemned a century before.[88] He reduced the taxes on 256 minor articles of food, besides tea, advertisements, carriages, dogs, male servants, apples, cheese, cocoa, butter, and raisins. He reduced the rate of postage to the Colonies—a reduction which, it is surprising to find, had not been even suggested by Mr. Disraeli or any of his predecessors in the highest of Imperial interests. An ingenious feature in his Budget was his manipulation of the Funds. Old Three per Cent. Consols, which could be paid off at a year’s notice, sold for a little over par, that is to say, £100 of stock sold for a little more than £100. New Three per Cents, however, which were not redeemable for twenty years, sold for £103—i.e., £100 of stock was worth in the market £103, the difference of £3 representing the value of the State guarantee to pay interest on the stock for twenty years. Hence, he said, if he gave a like guarantee for some of the unguaranteed stock, he might lay hands on the increment of value thereby added to it for the benefit of the State. He accordingly permitted fundholders to exchange £100 of Consols, or “Reduced Three per Cents.” for Exchequer bonds,[89] or for £82 10s. in New Three and a Half per Cent. Stock, guaranteed for forty years to pay £2 17s. 9d. of interest, or for £110 irredeemable Two and a Half per Cent. Stock. Mr. Spencer Walpole has said
