VIEW ON LOCH KATRINE: THE WALK BY THE SHORE.
her tête-à-tête with him. All this was done, and she remained there an hour and a half talking over everything, pouring all her confidences into his ears, and asking for his advice about everything. He said he had endeavoured to do as much good as he could, by smoothing down her irritation about things she did not like. As an example, he mentioned that while the Prince was with him a box was brought in with a despatch from Lord John which the Prince was to read. He did so with strong marks of displeasure, and then read it to Clarendon, saying they could not approve of it, and must return it to Lord John. Clarendon begged him not to do this; that it was not the way to deal with him, and it would be better to see what it contained that was really good and proper, and to suggest emendations as to the rest. He persuaded the Prince to do this, advised him what to say, and in the end Lord John adopted all the suggestions they made to him. On another occasion the Queen had received a very touching letter from the Duchess of Parma, imploring her protection and good offices, which she had sent to Lord John, desiring he would write an answer for her to make to it. He sent a very short, cold answer, which the Queen would not send. She asked Clarendon to write a suitable one for her, which he did, but insisted that she should send it to Lord John as her own. She did so, Lord John approved, and so this matter was settled.”[55]
An “inspired” pamphlet on the “Pope and the Congress” had appeared in Paris, pointing to a re-arrangement of the Italian Provinces, that not only alarmed Austria, but caused her to decline to enter the Congress altogether, unless France would disavow her complicity with such schemes. The moment, therefore, was opportune for a fresh combination, and the Emperor’s new plan was one to settle the Italian Question by a triple alliance between England, France, and Sardinia, which would guarantee the latter Power against all foreign intervention in Italy. At a meeting of the Liberal Cabinet this insidious project was broached by Lord Palmerston[56] on the 3rd of January, who was willing to enter into it even at the risk of war. The compact was long an affair of mystery, but light is thrown on it by a letter from Lord Derby to Lord Malmesbury (January 15th, 1860), in which Lord Derby says, “I return the well-known handwriting enclosed in your letter of the 13th. The information there given tallies with what I have received from other quarters, among others from Madame de Flahault, whom I met at Bretby. The offer of a commercial treaty was, however, coupled, though she did not tell me so, with the proposal of an alliance, offensive and defensive, with France, and a joint guarantee of the independence of Central Italy! Cowley came here specially to urge the adoption of these two measures; but my latest intelligence is that they were debated in the Cabinet on Tuesday last, strenuously urged by Palmerston and J. Russell, who had confidently assured the Cabinet of their success, acquiesced in by Gladstone, by the double inducement of his Italo-mania and his Free Trade policy, but on discussion rejected by a majority of the Cabinet.”[57]
The enlightened obstinacy with which the Queen pressed her objections to this wild scheme caused it to be abandoned, and for the courage and tenacity with which she maintained her position at that crisis England can never be too grateful. She foresaw, what Palmerston ignored, the inevitable conflict between Prussia and France, which she hoped and believed would lead to the unification of Germany, and one almost shudders to think of the position Great Britain would have occupied in 1870, had this offensive and defensive alliance with France been consummated in 1860. Her Majesty had permitted herself to be dragged by Palmerston into a war with Russia “for an idea,” with France as an ally. She could not forget the harsh lesson which that blunder had impressed on her. She could not forget, as easily as did Palmerston, how that alliance left England with little control over her action in war, and still less control over the settlement of the peace which was forced on her by the sudden desertion of her ally. Thwarted at this point, Napoleon and Palmerston renewed the attack at another. Persigny came to Lord John Russell with a suggestion that Austria and France should both pledge themselves not to interfere in Italy unless under a European mandate in case of anarchy, and he proposed that this arrangement might be made “the basis of an agreement between France and England.” The Queen’s answer was crushing. “If,” she wrote, “France and Austria will both abstain from interfering in the affairs of Italy, it will be much the wisest course; but the Queen cannot see why this should require an agreement to be entered into between France and us, who ought not to interfere at all.”[58]
As a matter of fact, Austria formally intimated she had no intention of interfering, and French troops in Rome and Lombardy were the only foreign troops at the time on Italian territory. But the recklessness of Palmerston’s intrigues with France cannot be justly appreciated, unless it is kept in view that Napoleon was now entering into another arrangement for settling the Italian Question. At Plombières he had promised Cavour to free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic on condition that Sardinia would cede Savoy and Nice to France. This bargain Cavour repudiated when the Emperor failed to make his word good at Villafranca. On the 16th of January Victor Emmanuel recalled Cavour to the head of affairs, and a new compact was made by which Sardinia would cede Nice and Savoy, as the price of Napoleon’s consent to her annexation of the revolted Duchies. It is hardly necessary to say that had Lord Palmerston, who was in ignorance of this compact, contrived to entangle England in alliance with France, the storm of indignation which swept over England when the cession of Nice and Savoy was intimated would have brought about the fall of his Ministry. But when Parliament opened on the 24th of January, and when Mr. Disraeli, in speaking to the Address, elicited very plainly the strong feeling of the House against compromising engagements with France, Lord Palmerston was fortunate in being able to say that his Government “was totally free from any engagement whatever with any Foreign Power upon the affairs of Italy.” He did not deem it necessary to add that for this stroke of luck the Cabinet owed him no thanks.
The points in the Queen’s Speech which attracted attention after the Italian Question were the hostilities with China and the Commercial Treat with France, which Mr. Cobden had negotiated during the fall of the preceding year. The Treaty with China was to have been ratified at Pekin. But when our Ambassador attempted to proceed thither he found the Peiho river blocked, and the Chinese forts not only opened fire, but repulsed our squadron. A joint expedition was fitted out in conjunction with France to avenge this defeat, and compel the Chinese Government to ratify the Treaty at Pekin, and complaints were made that Parliament had not been consulted before the joint expedition had been decided on. The history of Mr. Cobden’s Commercial Treaty has been told at great length elsewhere,[59] so that we need do no more than say it was signed on the 29th of January. Manchester immediately hailed Napoleon III. with the same effusive admiration that it bestowed on Peel in 1846. The English press, foreseeing an era of extended trade and permanent peace, ceased its attacks on the French Emperor, and complimented him so violently, that M. Baroche told Mr. Cobden its flattery would make the Treaty unpopular in France. The Treaty was at this stage merely the skeleton of a reciprocal fiscal arrangement. England gave France coal and iron duty free. England further agreed to reduce import duties on French wines and various articles of French manufacture. France, on the other hand, engaged not only to limit her customs duty to thirty per cent. on the value of English goods, but by the 13th Article she agreed to convert ad valorem duties into specific duties by a supplementary convention. The extent to which, under this Article, duties were reduced would of course measure the usefulness of the Treaty.
The Treaty, along with the changes in taxation which it would involve, was explained by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons on the 10th of February. His Budget estimates showed a deficit of over £9,000,000, to meet which he not only continued the tea and sugar duties, but levied an Income Tax of 10d. in the pound on incomes over £150 a year, and 7d. on incomes under that amount. One part of his scheme was to abolish the Paper duty, but in this he was thwarted by the House of Lords. The French Treaty compelled him to lower the duty on French spirits and wines, and to abolish duties on manufactures not subject to excise in England. He struck 370 articles out of the Tariff list, and reduced and readjusted those that he retained, which were forty-eight. “The whole of our recent fiscal history,” according to a high authority on financial questions, “is a complete vindication of the policy of remitting and reducing duties, so that nothing should remain on the tariff which did not contribute a substantial sum to the revenue, and in order that it might do so, should bear no duty high enough to preclude its passing into general consumption. By the remissions of 1860 that ideal was nearly attained. As an example of how the remissions worked, I may mention that the imports of French wines increased at once by 127 per cent. on the reduction of the duty. On the whole of the articles on which the customs duties were repealed in 1860 the immediate increase on the import duty was 40½ per cent., although the year 1861 was in some respects a highly unfavourable one in which to judge of the purchasing capacity of the nation.”[60] This brilliant and successful policy, however, was opposed bitterly by the Tories and a few Peelites, like Sir James Graham; and some Whigs, like Lord Clarendon,
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, MANCHESTER.