The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 2 of 4

by Robert Wilson

Writing on New Year’s Day in 1857, Lord Malmesbury says in his Diary, “The Conference opened yesterday on the questions of Bolgrad and the Isle of Serpents, which the Russians falsely claim as being included in the Treaty of Peace. The Swiss are making energetic preparations for resisting the threatened invasion of Neufchâtel by Prussia; whilst England and France are using their utmost exertions to prevent a war. England has declared war against Persia, and Admiral Seymour has bombarded Canton to avenge an insult offered to our flag.”[293] The Queen, in a letter conveying her greetings to the Emperor of the French, also observes, mournfully, that “the New Year again begins amid the din of warlike preparation;” and there was undoubtedly a feeling of disappointment in England that the Peace of Paris had not brought peace to the world. Yet the general condition of the country was prosperous. Crime, however—especially fraud and murder—had increased shockingly, and severe moralists in Pall Mall went about predicting that Parliament must now devote a Session to social legislation—especially penal legislation—so as to purge a corrupt people of its wickedness. But the corrupt people, much to the Queen’s regret, was of quite another opinion—and so were the political factions. The constituencies were beginning to murmur against taxation. Now that war was over, they demanded sweeping reductions in the income and other taxes, which involved the diminution of the army and navy to such slender dimensions, that her Majesty felt certain they would be as unfit to cope with a sudden emergency as they were when the Crimea was invaded. As for the factions, they were determined to turn out the Government, which they knew existed solely on the credit Palmerston had obtained by carrying on war when the nation wanted it, and ending it when the nation was getting sick of the struggle. The Queen was hostile to any abrupt change of Government at a time when she could see no means of replacing Palmerston’s Cabinet by a stronger one, and she viewed with disapprobation the subterranean intrigues which were going on between the Tories and the Peelites. That Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli were attempting, through the medium of Lord Stanley, to form a Coalition, was known at the Court; nay, it was even said that Mr. Gladstone was to take the leadership of the Tory Party in the House of Commons. Sir William Jolliffe, the Tory Whip, when pressed on the point in December, 1856, told Mr. George Byng that this was “not true at present; that he could not say what might or might not happen hereafter, but that he (Mr. Gladstone) could not be accepted as a leader, and must, in any case, first serve in the ranks.” Only a short time before that some of the younger members of the Party had visited the drawing-room of the Carlton Club with the amiable intention of throwing Mr. Gladstone out of the window. That they had now modified their repugnance to him indicates how keen their hunger for office had grown. But that the Tory Party was disorganised through Mr. Disraeli’s unpopularity, and also because Lord Palmerston’s policy, though Liberal abroad, was really too Conservative at home to be successfully attacked, is clear from a letter which Lord Derby wrote to Lord Malmesbury on the prosperity of the Conservatives at the close of 1856.[294]

Parliament was opened on the 3rd of February, 1857, and the Queen’s Speech naturally referred to the wars and rumours of war that filled the air. Law Reform and the Bank Act were the only subjects of domestic interest dwelt upon. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert now appeared almost anxious to join Lord Derby; and the Tories, on their part, were quite prepared to support Mr. Gladstone in demanding that the Income Tax be reduced to 5d. in the current year, and abolished altogether in 1860, as had been agreed on in 1853.[295] Mr. Disraeli’s attack, on the other hand, was directed against the Foreign Policy of the Government. He complained that at the very time Lord Clarendon was encouraging the hopes of Count Cavour and of Italy at the Congress of Paris, France had signed a Secret Treaty guaranteeing to Austria her Italian provinces, and had signed it by the advice of England. Lord Palmerston denied the existence of this Secret Treaty. But he admitted that in 1854, when there was some hope that Austria would take part in the war, an agreement was made to the effect that should Russia raise an insurrection in North Italy, France would help Austria to put it down, if Austrian armies were actually co-operating with the Allies against Russia. In the Upper House, Lord Aberdeen voted for the amendment to the Address with many of the Tories—a somewhat unusual thing for an ex-Premier to do—and this, along with Mr. Gladstone’s cordial support of Mr. Disraeli, was taken to be a sign that the Peelites desired to coalesce with the Opposition. Lord John Russell, who was a kind of political Ishmaelite, also spoke bitterly about the abortive demonstration of the fleet at Naples, which had drawn upon us insulting remonstrances, and had not coerced King Ferdinand into good behaviour. On the 17th of February Mr. Disraeli compelled Lord Palmerston to admit that “a military convention,” if not a Secret Treaty, between France and Austria had been signed, but only as a temporary arrangement. When, however, Mr. Disraeli persisted in saying it was a Secret Treaty, and that on the face of it there was no limit to the period of its operation, Palmerston lost his temper, a circumstance so extraordinary that it convinced the House he had been again caught tripping.

OLD WINDSOR LOCK.

(From a Photograph by Taunt and Co., Oxford.)

After many harassing consultations, the Queen felt that it was impossible for the Cabinet to resist the growing agitation against the Income Tax. The coalition between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli was too ominous to be disregarded; and so, on the 10th of February, she wrote to King Leopold, “We think we shall be able to reduce the Income Tax and yet maintain an efficient navy, and the organisation of the army, which is even more important than the number of the men.”[296] When Sir George Cornewall Lewis brought in his Budget on the 13th of February, it was found that he reduced the Income Tax from 1s. 4d. to 7d. in the pound; but of course this was still 2d. above the peace limit fixed in 1853. The complaint of the Opposition was that the Government imposed that 2d. merely to promote what Mr. Disraeli called the “turbulent and aggressive policy” abroad by which Lord Palmerston diverted the attention of the country from its own affairs at home.[297] Mr. Gladstone attacked the Budget all along the line. Sir George Lewis, he said, pretended to remit £11,000,000 of taxation. But of that sum £4,470,000 were war taxes, which necessarily dropped when war was over, and though Sir George brought the tea duty down from 1s. 9d. to 1s. 7d. on the lb., and on sugar from 20s. per cwt. to 18s. 4d., that still raised from tea and sugar £1,400,000 more than the old peace duties drew from them. The real remission, then, was not £11,000,000, but £3,184,000. The faults of the Budget were obviously two. It virtually ignored the pledge of the Government in 1853 to abolish the Income Tax in 1860. Instead of cutting down expenditure so as to render it possible to keep that pledge, it increased expenditure above the peace limit, so as to make it impossible to surrender the Income Tax.[298] The accepted financial policy of the country had been to grant an Income Tax during peace solely to enable the Government to remit taxes on articles of popular consumption. It was granted merely to give an elastic revenue time to recover from sudden remissions of indirect taxation. Sir George Lewis, however, still kept the tax above the peace limit, and his small reductions on the tea and sugar duties left them standing above the peace limit also. Moreover, he maintained his expenditure on a scale which created deficits that rendered the continuance of the Income Tax, without compensating remissions of indirect taxes, inevitable. In fact, Sir George Lewis may be said to have introduced the vicious principle of modern finance, by which a temporary Income Tax is insidiously converted into a permanent one, and by which, under cover of extraordinary disbursement during a war, the country is left after peace is declared with a residue of that outlay clinging to the estimates, as ordinary and permanent annual expenditure. The Budget, however, was carried through in a slightly modified form, but the sudden dissolution of Parliament in March compelled Sir George Lewis to levy his new taxes not on a descending scale for three years, but for the ensuing year only. With a view to the popular vote to which Lord Palmerston was about to appeal, Sir George then surrendered 2d. of the tea duty, which brought it down to 1s. 5d. on the pound. But he made no adequate provision for the Persian war, or the war with China. His alteration of the tea duty of course rendered his surplus a myth, and his Budget, with an inflated expenditure, went forth, as Mr. Gladstone complained, with a deficiency of ways and means. In fact, on the eve of an appeal to the constituencies, a prudish Chancellor of the Exchequer “went to the country” with a profligate electioneering Budget.

Mention has been already made of a “little war” that was being waged with Persia. It had sprung out of the irrepressible desire of the Shah to hold Herat, and from the traditional belief of the Foreign Office that when Herat was in Persian hands, “the key of India” was in the pockets of the Czar.[299] In 1851 Persia had promised that she would not meddle with Herat if the Afghans did not attempt to seize it. But the Governor of Candahar advanced on the coveted city, whose ruler appealed to Persia for protection. The Indian Government admitted that there was no danger to India in Persia responding to this appeal. The Foreign Office, however, suspended diplomatic relations with the Court of Teheran.[300] Persia then agreed to retire from Herat when the Afghans withdrew, and negotiations went on in a dilatory fashion till the Crimean War broke out, when the Czar urged Persia to resist and become his ally. The Shah’s Prime Minister held his Imperial master back, and Mr. Thomson, a typical representative of the Foreign Office in Persia, by way of further conciliating the friendly Premier, appointed as First Secretary of the British Legation, a disreputable person who had been dismissed from the Persian service, and whose family were among the most active enemies of the anti-Russian Minister. The Minister refused to receive this individual—Meerza Hashim by name. By way of compensating him Mr. Murray, who succeeded Mr. Thomson, appointed him British agent at Shiraz, a place where we had no right to have an agent at all, but where, by the courtesy of the Persian Government, we had been allowed to have one.[301] The Persian Premier then threatened to arrest Meerza Hashim. As a matter of fact, he arrested his wife, and maliciously insinuated in a despatch, when Mr. Murray demanded her release, that he had compromised himself with the lady. Murray accordingly struck his flag and demanded an apology, whereupon Persia issued a manifesto declaring that the Afghans were advancing on Herat, and threatening to seize that fortress. In July, 1856, a British force was ordered to proceed from Bombay to occupy the island of Karrack and the city of Bushire. By this time the Crimean War was over, and Persia could get no aid from her Russian ally. A Persian ambassador therefore was sent to Paris to negotiate for peace, but he broke his journey at Constantinople to arrange the terms with Stratford de Redcliffe. Whilst there, news came that Persia had captured Herat. Stratford demanded its evacuation, and the dismissal of the Prime Minister. This latter demand the Persian Envoy rejected. The English Government therefore went on with the war. It was, however, declared by the Indian Government that war was waged for the recovery of Herat, which Persia had offered to evacuate, whereas the British Government, in their declaration, stated that their object was the dismissal of the Persian Premier,[302] who had foiled the attempt of Russia to drag the Shah into the Crimean War. The Expedition, led by General Outram, occupied Karrack and captured Bushire. But these victories did not really determine the issue. In England the war had become unpopular. Palmerston had begun it, and carried it on without consulting the House of Commons, by the simple expedient of using the revenues of India to meet its expenses. This was a source of supplies which the House, of course, could not control. At the beginning of the Session it was currently rumoured that the Government would soon be called to account for a proceeding which the Representative Chamber was bound to view with jealousy and suspicion.

These mutterings of hostility alarmed Palmerston, for he had already determined to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the country against the condemnation which the House of Commons had passed on his policy in China. Whilst, as yet, the full bearing of his Persian policy was imperfectly understood by the constituencies, he hastened to make peace, and Persia, after her defeats, was not disposed to be obstinate. But the Shah refused to dismiss his Prime Minister, and Palmerston was accordingly fain to withdraw his demand, and be content with an apology for the imputations which had been cast on Mr. Murray’s character. Such was the inglorious end of a war which is one of the least creditable events in Lord Palmerston’s career. As might be expected, when the General Election was over, and the new Parliament met, Ministers were fiercely attacked for declaring and prosecuting the war unconstitutionally without consulting the House of Commons. The country was now fully alive to the danger that lurked in such a monstrous extension of the Queen’s prerogative as would permit her to use the revenues of India, which the House of Commons could not control, for carrying on war outside the Indian Empire. The only real control which the people have over the Crown is their power to stop supplies for the army. The Persian War, however, proved that the Crown could draw supplies and troops from India, without any Parliamentary sanction whatever. Palmerston’s policy had thus put into the hands of the Queen a deadlier weapon of despotism than either the Tudors or the Stuarts had dared to wield. But the attack, damaging as it was, failed to upset the Ministry; though the House, in 1858, at Mr. Gladstone’s suggestion, forced the Government to accept a clause in the India Bill which disallowed such pretensions on the part of the Crown.[303]

But at the beginning of the Session of 1857 it was not Persia but China that really engrossed the attention of the country. A dispute between Sir John Bowring, Governor of Hong Kong, and the Chinese authorities at Canton, raised an issue which made it easy for the Peelites to unite with the Tories, and the Cobdenites with both.