COUNCIL CHAMBER, OSBORNE.

(After a Photograph by F. G. C. Stuart, Southampton.)

subordinates subjected Mr. Disraeli day after day might tempt him to resign and abandon the Bill. A body of Radicals, called the “Tea Room Clique,” began to give the Government friendly aid, and so greatly encumbered Mr. Gladstone’s opposition, that for a time he refused to be responsible for the leadership of the Liberal Party. The great difficulty was to apply the Bill to tenants who compounded with their landlords for their rates. As these householders were not personally rated, they would not be enfranchised. Mr. Gladstone’s idea was to definitely fix the franchise at a £5 rating limit, and on the 5th of April Mr. Coleridge was put up to move an instruction to the Committee to clear the path for Mr. Gladstone’s proposal. The Radicals who met in the “Tea Room” of the House of Commons forced Mr. Coleridge to give way. When Mr. Gladstone in Committee proposed his plan, it was defeated by the defection of the Tea Room Party. Finally, the matter was settled by Mr. Disraeli putting an end to the practice of compounding for rates, so that every householder, unless he were a pauper, got a vote. Perhaps the most graphic view of the struggles, and the confused strife of this Session when Mr. Disraeli demoralised his own party by perpetual surrender, and broke up the Opposition under the solvent of intrigue, is given by Mr. Paul’s comparison of the original provisions of the Bill and its provisions when it received the Queen’s assent.

Original Bill.Bill As Passed.
Household franchise in boroughs, conditional Household franchise, conditional on one year’s
on two years’ residence, and personal paymentresidence; compound householder abolished, the
of rates.occupier alone being rated.
£15 franchise in counties. £12 franchise in counties.
Educational franchise for graduates or associates No educational franchise.
in Arts of any University of the United
Kingdom, for those who passed senior middle-class
examinations, for clergymen, professional
men, and schoolmasters.
A pecuniary franchise for savings bank depositors No pecuniary franchise.
with balance of £50, fundholders of like
amount, and direct taxpayers to the amount of
£1 per annum.
Dual voting—a provision entitling the holder No dual voting.
of the pecuniary franchise to vote for the same
borough in respect to any franchise involving
occupation of premises, and payment of rates.
Voting papers. No voting papers.
No lodger franchise. A £10 lodger franchise.
No cumulative vote or three-cornered constituencies, Four three-cornered constituencies.
these being declared by Mr. Disraeli
erroneous in principle and pernicious in practice.
Twenty-three towns under 7,000 in population Thirty-five towns below 10,000 in population
to be deprived of one member, and Totnes,deprived of one member. Eleven boroughs
Reigate, Great Yarmouth, and Lancaster, convictedultimately disfranchised.
of corrupt practices, to be disfranchised.
Fourteen of the new seats to be given to Eighteen of the new seats to boroughs,
boroughs, fifteen to counties, and one to Londontwenty-five to the counties, and one to London
University.University, one seat being afterwards given to
Wales, and seven to Scotland.
No third members to Manchester, Liverpool, Three members given to Manchester, Liverpool,
Birmingham, and Leeds.Birmingham, and Leeds.[259]

As the Duke of Buccleuch said bitterly, the only part of the Bill which the Radicals had allowed to stand was “the word ‘Whereas.’” Mr. Disraeli, in fact, induced his party to tolerate the measure because he surrounded Household Suffrage with an elaborate series of checks. The process of removing these one by one, but so gradually that he familiarised his followers with capitulation, was the process which he subsequently described in a speech at Edinburgh as that of “educating his party.” But when the checks disappeared the Conservative Reform Bill was to all intents and purposes the Bill of Mr. Bright and the advocates of Household Suffrage pure and simple. In June Lord Malmesbury says, “After many vicissitudes, the Reform Bill came up to the House of Lords, and Lord Derby moved the Second Reading without a division, saying it was ‘a leap in the dark.’ Peers on our side were averse to it, but at a meeting of them Lord Derby said he would resign if it was rejected.” That settled the matter. The Bill was ultimately passed on the 15th of August with only one important amendment—the clause creating the three-cornered constituencies. The Bills for Scotland and Ireland were carried in the following year, the Irish franchise being, however, fixed at £4 in boroughs. At Manchester and Edinburgh Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, during the recess, celebrated the passing of the Bill at great Conservative festivals, Mr. Disraeli vaunting the success with which he had “educated” his party up to the point of surrender.

During the struggle for Parliamentary Reform in England another great democratic movement on the Continent was in full and rapid progress. It was the movement of the German people in favour of German Unity, which had been arrested in 1848. The pacific policy of the Queen had saved England from sharing in Palmerston’s wild scheme to thwart the aspirations of the German race in 1865. Hence Englishmen could view critically the strife between the people of Germany, led by Prussia, and the forces of Teutonic feudalism, organised and made militant by Austria. But it was impossible for the Queen to be indifferent to the result of this conflict. The husbands of her daughters were fighting on different sides. The struggle had been long foreseen by the Prince Consort, who was a strong partisan of German Unity, and had for years used all his influence with the Court of Berlin to induce Prussia to lead the national movement in Germany. In the summer of 1866 Europe felt that the truce of Gastein was fast coming to an end. Manteuffel was the Prussian Governor of Holstein. Goblenz was the Austrian Governor of Sleswig, and the claims of the Augustenburg Pretender—reserved for future settlement by the Convention of Gastein—soon furnished the administrators of the two provinces with a fruitful cause of quarrel. When a popular ovation was accepted by the Prince-Pretender in Sleswig, Manteuffel harshly reprimanded him. At Kiel in Holstein Austria openly encouraged the Pretender’s Party in defiance of Prussia. Agitators from South Germany went about the country, under Austrian patronage, urging the Holsteiners to shake off the yoke of Prussia. The “conjoint dominion’ was no longer endurable. Austria proposed to submit the dispute to the German Diet, a proposal which Prussia rejected, and when the Powers began to prepare for war, their example was followed by Italy, who now saw her chance of delivering Venice. In fact, early in spring, 1866, Italy and Prussia had entered into a secret Treaty embodying offensive and defensive action against Austria. The French Emperor knew of the existence of this Treaty, and it was a mystery why he did not intervene between the disputants. The probability is that he calculated on being able to interfere with profit to France after Prussia and Austria had each exhausted themselves in a long and sanguinary struggle, a reckoning which the sudden collapse of Austria completely upset. Napoleon III., though ostensibly suggesting a reference of the dispute to a European Conference, was secretly intriguing with both Powers. To Prussia he proposed an alliance on the basis of ceding to France the left bank of the Rhine, including Belgium, which England was bound to defend by arms. To Austria he offered an alliance based on the cession of Venice to Italy, in return for Silesia—a province which every Prussian regards with pride, as one of the Great Frederick’s spoils of war. And all this time England was under the delusion that France was still a loyal ally, while the English Foreign Office was in utter darkness as to the subterranean negotiations in which Napoleon was engaged. Nothing now made for peace, except the scruples of the King of Prussia, who was personally attached to the Austrian Emperor, and who regarded with horror anything approaching fratricidal strife. The project of a Conference was abandoned because Austria disliked it. Prussia refused to submit to the arbitration or jurisdiction of the German Diet, the majority of which took the side of Austria, and the Austrians accordingly plunged into war, with Bavaria, Würtemberg, Hanover, Saxony, and many of the smaller States as their allies. In England fashionable opinion was all in favour of Austria. Her army, we were assured by the leading organs of the upper classes, was invincible. As for the troops and the generals of Prussia, they were spoken of as if they were beneath contempt.

On the 14th of June the Diet, 1866, on the motion of Austria, resolved to put in Federal execution against Prussia, in Holstein. On the 16th Prussian troops were marching through Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Hesse-Darmstadt in three columns on Saxony. This swift blow paralysed the minor States; in fact, Bavaria, with her army of 100,000, was not ready to come to the help of Austria till the war was over. Western Germany north of the Maine thus fell an easy prey to Prussian skill and valour. But that skill and valour were more conspicuously displayed in the chief theatre of the war. The Austrian commander, Marshal Benedek, having allowed the Prussians to seize Dresden at the outset, joined the Austrians in Bohemia. In two columns, one under the “Red Prince” (Frederick Charles), and the other under the Crown Prince (the “our Fritz” of the Queen’s family), the Prussians poured like a rapid and resistless torrent through Saxony and the Silesia passes, in a parallel line, into the plains of Bohemia. What need to tell the tale? The flower of the Austrian army—its German troops—was wasted in Venetia. The Italian and Hungarian regiments in Bohemia were disaffected. The Prussians had the needle-gun, whereas the Austrians had the old, slow-firing muzzle-loader. Von Moltke, the ablest strategist in Europe, directed the Prussian attack, and thus fight after fight was lost by Austria. On the 3rd of July, 1866, the crowning victory of the war was won by Prussia at Sadowa, where the Crown Prince, aided by Blumenthal, played the part of Blucher at Waterloo, and the invincible Austrian Empire lay prostrate in the dust. In Italy the Austrians were more successful. They won the battle of Custozza and the sea-fight of Lissa—victories which were barren of results. Peace was signed at Prague on the 23rd of August, 1866. Venice had been surrendered to France, who was to hand it over to Italy. Austria was expelled from Germany, and the Danish duchies were transferred to Prussia, but with the proviso that the people of North Sleswig might, if they desired it, join Denmark. Saxony, however, retained a certain amount of independence, whereas the smaller States were to be organised into a new German Confederation under Prussian leadership. Germany north of the Maine was annexed to Prussia. The triumph of Prussia was immediately followed by the reorganisation of the French army, and the initiation of reforms in Austria.