[206] Father of the present Lord Salisbury.
[207] It is interesting to note how the Tory leaders in the House of Lords at that time dictated to the whole Party its strategy and policy at critical moments.
[208] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 327, 328.
[209] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 292.
[210] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., pp. 254, 255.
[211] Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p 370.
[212] As a matter of fact, while the Conference was going on and the war party was rampant in London drawing-rooms, the Germans were greatly alarmed lest England should interfere. Count Vitzthum, writing on the 5th of May, says: “A peer who is very favourably disposed to Germany, said to me yesterday, ‘Take care, for God’s sake, to secure an armistice as soon as possible. If the question of war or peace were put to-day in the House of Commons to vote, three-fourths of the members would vote for war.’ Similar hints have been given to the Prussian Ambassador from a less unprejudiced quarter. We must not forget that England, by a blockade of the German and Austrian coasts, at a comparatively small expense, could exert a serious pressure on Vienna and Berlin, particularly if the revolution were let loose at the same time in Italy and Hungary.” Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 357. See on this point Palmerston’s own account in his letter of 1st of May to Lord Russell of the interview, in which he menaced Count Apponyi with naval intervention. Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 249. It is only just to say, that if Palmerston was eager to strike at the German Powers, he knew perfectly well where to plant a telling blow on a vulnerable point. Cobden’s argument was that a blockade of the German coast would be futile because railways had rendered blockades innocuous, unless, as in America, the blockading Power could command the internal communications of the enemy.
[213] Ashley’s Life of Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 258.
[214] The Confederate cruisers that had escaped from British ports—the Florida, Alabama, Virginia, and Rappahannock—had taken 187 ships and destroyed property exceeding in value £3,000,000. There was only one thing distinguishing them from English privateers—namely, that their chief officers carried Confederate commissions. Some of them got away because the Courts, from the ambiguous state of our law, could not condemn them. Others escaped through the delay and negligence of the authorities.
[215] In England the Queen’s taxes are collected by sending petty local officials round from door to door. In Scotland the Collector of Taxes is a high Imperial official, and the people on a specified date go to his office and pay their taxes. The result is, that though defalcations are too common in England, they are unknown in Scotland. Whilst in England a vast fabric of arrears accumulates from year to year and the revenue comes in driblets, the whole Imperial taxation of Scotland, including that of the poor Islanders, is paid promptly to the Treasury within the first fortnight of every January. There are no arrears except from poverty, and these are trivial.