CHRISTIANSBORG CASTLE, COPENHAGEN.
Only one question provoked anything resembling a party division during the Session, and that was the Prison Ministers Bill. The object of the measure was to allow prisoners to be attended by clergy of their own denominations and persuasions. As the Roman Catholics would derive most benefit from the Bill, it was opposed warmly by a powerful body of the Tory Party. The Liberals naturally supported the measure, and on this occasion they were joined by a few of the more enlightened Conservatives, such as Lord Derby, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Henley, and Sir John Pakington. As Mr. Disraeli was at the time favouring an intrigue for detaching the Roman Catholic Party from the Liberals, it was with ill-concealed chagrin that he listened to the bigoted attacks of his followers on the Bill, which was, however, passed. The suspension of amicable relations with Brazil,[170] the vote for the purchase of the Exhibition Buildings, the reorganisation of the London police, and the attitude of the Government to the belligerents in the American Civil War, were the only other topics that created serious or practical Parliamentary discussion.
The vote for the purchase of the Exhibition Building of 1862 was extremely unpopular, and but for the Queen’s influence it would probably have been rejected by the House of Commons. The country even then viewed with strong suspicion the tendency to centralise all National collections in the distant Court suburb of Kensington. It was also insinuated that the Royal Family had pecuniary interests in building land, the value of which would be enhanced by creating a Science and Art Department in this quarter. That insinuation is contradicted by Sir Theodore Martin, who asserts that Prince Albert never was able to save any money out of his private income to purchase such lands for his heirs.[171] This perhaps accounts for what has long been a popular mystery—the fact that his will was never submitted to Probate. As a matter of course, if he had no money to leave to his heirs, the Prince must have left no will that was worth proving. But in 1863 these insinuations had sunk deep in the public mind, and the manner in which Lord Palmerston managed the question gave colour to them. He knew that the proposal to buy the Exhibition Building of 1862 was hateful to the taxpayers. The edifice was architecturally unfit for the reception of a permanent national collection of paintings, and its distance from London rendered all schemes for transferring to it the pictures from the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square objectionable in the extreme. Palmerston, however, at the outset disarmed his critics by proposing merely to buy from the Exhibition Commissioners, for £67,000, the site of the Exhibition, and it was tolerably cheap for a metropolitan site, in days when land in the City fetched £119,000 an acre. This site, he said, was wanted for a building to house the new Patent Office, some natural history collections from the British Museum, and for a National Portrait Gallery. Then he asked the House of Commons to vote £120,000 for the purchase of another “lot” of seventeen acres belonging to the Commissioners adjacent to the Exhibition site, and, finally, he desired it to vote £80,000 for the building itself. Very artfully he had the votes put separately, and Mr. Gladstone aided him by positively assuring the House that the project of buying the building—which was universally unpopular—was one quite apart from the other projects. By a vote of 267 to 135 the House agreed, but grudgingly, to the purchase of the ground, intending to fight the taxpayers’ battle on the question of buying the building. When, however, they came to the vote for the building, Mr. Gladstone informed them they had no option but to purchase it, for the contractors were under no obligation to remove it—a fact which Lord Palmerston had carefully concealed from the House. Members were thus in possession of a site burdened with a useless building which it was nobody’s business to remove. If the Government pulled it down, and then put up another structure in its place, the operation would cost much more than the £105,000 which were needed to buy and adapt it to public uses. The House was furious at finding itself trapped by Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone. Bitter complaints of Courtly jobbery were heard on all sides, and a Ministerial defeat was the result. Lord Malmesbury, writing on the 5th of July in his “Diary,” says:—“Several people called, who told me that the scene in the House of Commons when the division took place on the vote for the purchase of the Exhibition Building was extraordinary. Sir Stafford Northcote’s speech[172] was the signal for a storm, and he was forced to sit down. Disraeli had canvassed his supporters, telling them that he had a letter in his pocket from the Queen. This had a disastrous effect, and when he got up the hooting was so terrific that he could not be heard. Gladstone’s speech had already excited great indignation, for it showed how completely the Government had deceived the House when Lord Palmerston had induced them to vote for the purchase of the land, leaving them under the delusion that the contractors for the Exhibition were bound to remove the building if it was not sold within a certain time. Gladstone had told them that there was no engagement of the sort, and that he believed they were not obliged to remove it at all. This, whether true or not, was taken as a menace to force them to buy the building, and infuriated the House of Commons the more, as Lord Elcho proved that the purchase would be a most disadvantageous one, entailing an enormous expense. So the House rose en masse, and, after a scene of the utmost confusion and excitement, defeated the Government by more than two to one, Gladstone and Disraeli looking equally angry.”[173] It need hardly be said that Mr. Disraeli’s indiscreet use of the Queen’s name in this questionable transaction was unwarranted and unwarrantable.
The inefficiency displayed by the City Police at the entry of the Princess Alexandra into London tempted Sir George Grey to propose that the Metropolitan and City Forces should be amalgamated under the control of the Home Office. This was hotly opposed. The Lord Mayor and Mr. Alderman Sidney protested against a scheme for giving the Home Secretary control of what might become a large standing army in the City of London.[174] Other members raised the cry of “centralisation,” and denounced the measure as an attack on the principle of local self-government. It was now the turn of London to be assailed, but Manchester and Birmingham and all other powerful cities would soon share the fate of the Metropolis. All over England municipal bodies naturally made common cause with the City of London, and it was soon apparent that the Government must either bend or break. Luckily it was discovered that the Bill was not a public but a private Bill, and, as such, subject in respect of notices to certain Standing Orders which had not been obeyed. This omission gave Sir George Grey a technical excuse for withdrawing it.
Vigorous efforts were made during 1863 to induce the Government to recognise the Southern Confederacy, but they were made in vain. Mr. Roebuck, in the House of Commons, proposed a motion in favour of recognition, alleging that in an interview with Napoleon III. he had discovered that France would co-operate with England for that purpose—nay, he warned Lord Palmerston that France might recognise the South without waiting for our co-operation. The Tory Party, though strongly sympathising with Mr. Roebuck’s views, were restrained by their leaders from harassing the Cabinet, and it was the general feeling that Ministers should be left quite free to act. As for the Government, through Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, it repeatedly declared that it was bent on adhering to a policy of scrupulous neutrality. But this was a matter of some difficulty. Many Englishmen had engaged in the lucrative trade of blockade-running. When their vessels failed to pass the Federal cordon round the Southern ports, and were seized, their owners, as Lord Russell said, “put on an air of injured innocence, and came to the Foreign Office demanding redress.” In Parliament, too, their friends attacked Ministers for meekly submitting to violations of International Law by officers of the Federal Navy, and the investigation of these cases, especially when the seizures were of doubtful legality, raised many irritating controversies between the two Governments. Swift-armed cruisers were built in English ports for the Confederate States, and then taken out to sea, and fitted with their guns and armaments. The difficulty of preventing their escape—at all times serious—was aggravated by the uncertain state of English law on the subject. One of these cruisers, the Alabama, had been allowed to sail from the Mersey, and had committed fearful depredations on Federal commerce. The American Government alleged that her escape was due to Lord Russell’s culpable negligence. The truth was that the Government meant to arrest the Alabama, but owing to the temporary mental derangement of the Judge Advocate-General there was delay in going through certain legal formalities, and before this was overcome the ship had put out to sea. On the other hand, when another vessel of the same class—the Alexandra—was seized, her seizure was pronounced illegal by the English Law Courts. Lord Russell’s action was either too slow or too quick, and in each case it served to irritate both North and South. But the country gave the Government a generous support, recognising their sincerity in endeavouring to maintain a neutral policy, in spite of the pressure which was put upon them by Southern partisans.
In America the war dragged slowly on. On the 1st of January Mr. Lincoln’s Proclamation abolishing slavery in the rebel States took effect, but without producing a servile insurrection, as was anticipated. After
