SIR CHARLES PHIPPS.
sobriety gave the people more power to resist disease, and sanitary precautions which, at the instance of the Executive Committee in Manchester, were taken by local authorities also tended to keep the villages wholesome. The funds by which distress was relieved came from special local rates levied by consent of Parliament in the unions; from loans raised by local authorities under Parliamentary sanction, and spent on public works which gave employment to the operatives; and, last of all, from voluntary subscriptions, which were sent from all quarters of the world. At first it was thought that little could be expected from the cotton districts themselves. “Lancashire,” said Mr. Cobden to Lady Hatherton, “with its machinery stopped is like a man in a fainting fit. It would be as natural to attempt to draw money from the one as blood from the other.”[178] But in one form or another, in voluntary contributions, rates, loss of wages, depreciation of fixed capital, business losses, Lancashire spent an aggregate of £12,445,000 in coping with the Cotton Famine. Lancashire, indeed, raised £1,400,000 of the voluntary contributions received up to April, 1863, which came to £2,735,000. The work of administration was chiefly centred in the Executive Committee at Manchester, the President of which was the Earl of Derby. The voluntary labour at their command must have been very great, for the cost of administration came only to 15s. for every £100. What was afterwards called “the Conservative reaction” in Lancashire set in after this Fund was distributed, for in time, when the old generation of Radicals died out, their successors in the districts which had been saved from starvation by the almoners of the Fund, who were often zealous Anglicans, nearly all went over to the Tory Party. The Queen did her utmost to contribute to the success of the Fund, and her joy was unalloyed when she saw that its administrators had, in the beginning of 1864, averted the disaster that menaced her Northern Duchy.
THE ALBERT BRIDGE, WINDSOR.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DANISH WAR.
Stagnant Politics—Excitement over the Danish War—Attitude of the Queen—Withdrawal of the Danes from Holstein—Lord Wodehouse’s Mission—The Quarterly Review advocates War—Mr. Disraeli Repudiates a War Policy—Lord Palmerston’s Secret Plans—The Case against Germany—The Queen’s Warnings—Mr. Cobden’s Arguments—Lord Russell’s “Demands”—Palmerston drafts a Warlike Queen’s Speech—The Queen Refuses to Sanction it—Lord Derby Summoned to Osborne—He is Pledged to a Peace Policy—Austria and Prussia in Conflict with the Diet—The Occupation of Sleswig—War at Last—Retreat of the Danes to Düppel—Palmerston’s Protests Answered by German Victories—The Invasion of Jutland—Storming of the Düppel Redoubts—Excitement in London—Garibaldi’s Visit to London—Garibaldi and the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland—Anecdotes of Garibaldi’s Visit—Clarendon’s Visit to Napoleon III.—Expulsion of Garibaldi by Palmerston—Napoleon III. Agrees to Accept the Proposal for a Conference—Triumph of the Queen’s Peace Policy—Palmerston’s Last Struggle—His Ministry Saved by Surrender to Mr. Cobden—The Treaty of Vienna—End of the War.