CHAPTER XIII.
THE NEW ERA OF REFORM.
A “Little War” in Abyssinia—King Theodore’s Arrest of Vice-Consul Cameron—The Unanswered Letter to the Queen—A Skilful but Expensive General—Sir Robert Napier’s Expedition—An Autumnal Session—Addition to the Income Tax—Parliament in 1868—A Spiritless Legislature—Fishing for a Policy—Apologetic Ministers—Mr. Bright on Repeal—The Irish Church Question—Fenian Alarms—Illness and Resignation of Lord Derby—Mr. Disraeli Prime Minister—His Quarrel with Lord Chelmsford—Lord Derby Arbitrates—The “Giant Chancellor”—Mr. Disraeli’s New Policy—Discontented Adullamites—Public Executions—Lord Mayo and Concurrent Endowment—“The Pill to Cure the Earthquake”—Mr. Gladstone Attacks the Government—The Irish Church Resolutions—Resignation or Dissolution—Mr. Disraeli’s “No Popery” Cry—Lord Chelmsford’s Bad Pun—Defeat of the Ministry—Mr. Disraeli and the Queen—“Scenes” in the House of Commons—Charges of Treason—Mr. Disraeli’s Relations with the Queen—A Parliamentary Duel between Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Bright—The Dissolution of Parliament—Mr. Ward Hunt’s Budget—Conclusion of the Abyssinian War—The General Election—Triumph of Mr. Gladstone—Resignation of the Ministry—Mr. Gladstone’s New Cabinet—The Queen’s Politeness to Mr. Bright—Illness of Prince Leopold—Attempted Assassination of the Duke of Edinburgh—The Queen’s Book—The Queen Accused of Heresy—The West-End Tradesmen and the Queen—Mr. Reardon, M.P., suggests Abdication—A Bungled Volunteer Review at Windsor—A Hot London Season—Serious Illness of the Queen—Her Tour in Switzerland—Death of the Archbishop of Canterbury—Conflict between the Queen and Mr. Disraeli as to Church Patronage—The Revolution in Spain—Rupture between Turkey and Greece—Another War-Cloud in the East.
An autumn Session of Parliament had been held in November, 1867, in order to vote supplies for one of those “little wars’ in which England has so frequently been engaged during the Queen’s reign, a war which arose out of a dispute with the King of Abyssinia. This swarthy and half-savage potentate had detained in captivity several British subjects, one of them being Captain Cameron, a British Vice-Consul on the Red Sea littoral. Theodore of Abyssinia had seized them to mark his indignation at Lord Russell’s culpable discourtesy in neglecting to answer a letter which he had addressed to the Queen. Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, a Syrian emissary of the Foreign Office, had endeavoured to procure the release of the prisoners, but in his turn he, too, was seized and compelled to share their fate. When Parliament was prorogued the Queen’s Speech had intimated that the captives would have to be rescued by force, and an army of 10,000 men, under Sir Robert Napier, was equipped at Bombay for that purpose. At the end of 1867 a portion of it had landed in King Theodore’s country. Napier was a skilful but an expensive general. At the outset he spent £2,000,000 on his Expedition, and a further demand for an equal sum was made. Hence Parliament had to be summoned in November to vote these supplies. An additional penny was put on the Income Tax, and the Government was authorised to use the Exchequer balances for the expenses of the campaign. The most caustic critic of the Ministry was Mr. Lowe, who condemned it for declaring war without the authority of Parliament.
The New Year (1868) found Parties and politicians preparing for the great electoral struggle for power. But there could be no General Election till the new register of voters became operative. Hence the country passed
SIR ROBERT NAPIER (AFTERWARDS LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA).
through a Parliamentary interregnum during which it was ruled by a House of Commons that had exhausted its mandate, and by its own act had ceased to represent the bulk of the enfranchised classes. It lacked authority to legislate, and was too spiritless to intrigue. All that could be done by its leaders was to prepare the ground for the General Election; in other words, they began to seek for a policy with which they could go to the country. Many Cabinet meetings were held in January, but with no very obvious result. Ministers seemed unable to hit on a programme, and when Lord Stanley and Mr. Gathorne Hardy addressed a great political meeting at Bristol on the 22nd, their chief object appeared to be to apologise for the Reform Act. It had been demanded in a manner that it would have been dangerous to refuse, and the “innovating impulse” which it might create would soon spend itself. Such, at least, was Lord Stanley’s view. The Liberals, on the other hand, had been openly fishing for a policy. Some, like Mr. Lowe, Mr. Stansfeld, and Mr. Forster, pressed for radical measures of educational reform. “We must educate our masters,” said Mr. Lowe, and so he now demanded national compulsory unsectarian education. A few rising young men, like Mr. Fawcett, gave prominence to Land Law Reform, the creation of peasant-proprietorship, abolition of primogeniture, and the like. Mr. Bright, however, like most thinking men at the time, contended that the Irish Question must hold the first place in the Liberal programme of the future. The recent activity of the Fenians, and the discovery that the Irish patriots had found in America a new fulcrum for their agitation, convinced Englishmen that a new departure must be taken in Irish policy. Unless England could dictate a Conspiracy Bill to the United States, the American-Irish could keep Ireland in revolutionary restlessness so long as Irishmen despaired of getting grievances redressed by the Imperial Parliament. But what should be done for Ireland? Some said the Land Question must be settled; others that concessions to the priesthood in the matter of education would suffice; others, like Lord Stanley, thought the Irish case was hopeless, and they talked of the impossibility of conceding anything to noise and menace.
Mr. Bright’s great speech at Birmingham on the 3rd of February, however, advanced the position of the Liberal Party in the boldest manner. There had been some talk of giving Ireland political autonomy, but it had failed to touch the sense of the nation. Oddly enough, however, Mr. Bright did not show himself strongly antipathetic to this policy. He was opposed to the Repeal of the Union, but on the other hand he declared that Repeal was a course which was open to consideration if remedial legislation failed. And he was at great pains to prepare the ground for a Repeal agitation by reconciling the English mind to the discussion of such a policy. It was for this reason that he dwelt on the fact that Repeal of the Union with Scotland was once defeated in a full House merely by a majority of two. That, said Mr. Bright, was a high precedent, if any one wished to adopt a Repeal agitation as a remedy for Irish discontent. But in the meantime Mr. Bright’s plans were (1), to disestablish the Anglican Church in Ireland and secularise its property, distributing the spoil in fair proportions among the chief sects of Ireland; (2), as to the land question, he proposed that a Land Commission should buy up the estates of absentee landlords and sell them to tenants, who were to pay the purchase-money in a certain term of years by a slight addition to their rent. In the meantime London was swarming with special constables. The garrison at Woolwich stood to its guns every night expecting a Fenian attack from the river. Special precautions had also to be taken to guard Windsor, and Lord St. Leonards, with unconscious humour, wrote a letter to the Times imploring the Fenians to confine their operations to Ireland, because by annoying Englishmen they rendered the Irish cause increasingly unpopular in England. In these circumstances Ministers committed the fatal mistake of resolving to do nothing—except pass the Scottish and Irish Reform Bills, a Boundary Bill, and a Bribery Bill. They said that in two or three years’ time they might be in a position to consider other matters, such as that of National Education. The Irish Church could obviously not be assailed by a Party closely dependent on the goodwill of the English clergy. As for the Irish Land Question, Lord Stanley disposed of it by simply declaring that every proposal to deal with it which he would not like to see applied to England was pure “quackery.”
On the 13th of February Parliament met, and on the 16th the town was startled to hear alarming accounts of the Prime Minister’s health. Repeated attacks of gout had broken up his constitution, and on the 24th of February he resigned, Mr. Disraeli being chosen by the Queen as his successor. Here again the Queen showed her good sense. A foolish intrigue had been directed against Mr. Disraeli by some members of his Party, who having trusted him with carrying out a revolution, refused to trust him with the work of Government. Neither Lord Stanley nor the Duke of Richmond—whose names it is understood were mentioned as his rivals—had Mr. Disraeli’s ability, experience, fame, and dexterity in managing men. They had in truth no qualification whatever, save their rank, which could put them in competition with Mr. Disraeli, and the Queen had naturally grave doubts whether, on the eve of an appeal to the new Democracy, it would be seemly to go to it with an open declaration that, when Capacity and Rank competed for the Premiership of England, Rank must carry the day. Mr. Disraeli’s elevation had been, however, foreseen by many shrewd observers. During the vacation Bishop Wilberforce met a brilliant company of statesmen and men of letters at the late Lord Stanhope’s place at Chevening. The events of the Session were frequently discussed, and their conversations are summed up by Wilberforce in his Diary as follows:—“No one even guesses at the political future: whether a fresh election will strengthen the Conservatives or not seems altogether doubtful. The most wonderful thing is the rise of Disraeli. It is not the mere assertion of talent, as you hear so many say. It seems to me quite beside that. He has been able to teach the House of Commons almost to ignore Gladstone; and at present lords it over him, and I am told, says that he will hold him down for twenty years.”[278]