a compromise which would have legalised formal Bible-reading and hymn-singing during school-hours, divorced from any distinctive religious instruction, whereas Mr. Mill and Mr. Fawcett would have preferred compulsory secularism, to permissive sectarianism. Bible-reading, without note or comment, it was felt, might be unobjectionable in the case of children reared in religious families. But it was obviously useless to the “wastrels” of the gutter whom it was the primary object of the Bill to instruct. The great majority of Englishmen believed that moral teaching was a powerful agent for civilising this class of children, and that though catechisms and formularies should be excluded from new rate-built schools, it was not wise to fetter the discretion of the teacher, in explaining the Bible to the best of his judgment and ability. But as to the old denominational schools, it was generally admitted that Parliament could not do more than ask them to separate their sectarian, from their secular instruction by a “Time-table Conscience Clause.” It would not have been just to insist that they should submit to be virtually secularised,[324] under pain of forfeiting their share in the school-rate or the Imperial Grant in Aid. Mr. Forster was willing to concede vote by ballot for the Boards, and the Time-table Conscience Clause. But he refused to give effect to the national feeling in favour of excluding from rate-built schools denominational creeds and formularies, and leaving religious teaching to the discretion and good taste of schoolmasters and school managers. Moreover, he failed to meet the reasonable demand that a School Board should by law be established in every parish, so as to provide a competent authority for keeping the education of the district up to the proper standard of efficiency. At length the Government bent before the tempest of agitation which the Secularists and Dissenters raised. Mr. Gladstone accepted an amendment of Mr. Cowper Temple’s, excluding from all rate-built schools denominational catechisms and formularies. But instead of limiting the power of denominational managers to control religious teaching in cases where they did not supply a large moiety of the school funds, he entirely severed the connection between these schools and local authorities elected by the ratepayers. They were to depend on the Imperial Grant alone, but then this Grant to all schools was to be raised so as to cover not one third, but about one half of their expenses. Mr. Disraeli, with an eye to the Radical Secularist “Cave,” scoffed at the compromise as a scheme for endowing “a new sacerdotal caste.” Lord John Manners lamented that it would ruin denominational schools. The Dissenters averred it would encourage them by doubling their Grants in Aid. They seemed to argue that parents who preferred denominational education should themselves pay a special price for it, whereas, parents who desired secular education should get it at the expense of the State. Mr. Gladstone’s compromise, however, was accepted, and the Bill was passed by both Houses. But it created a feud between the Dissenters and the Liberal Party, which irretrievably weakened the Government.
With the exception of a Bill to enable persons in Holy Orders to get rid of Clerical Disabilities when they desired to quit the ministry of the Church, and a Coercion Bill for Ireland, the legislative results of the Session were not of much importance. Mr. Lowe’s second Budget, introduced on the 11th of April, showed the amazing surplus of £7,870,000 on the accounts for 1869-70. He had spent out of this sum £4,300,000 for the Abyssinian War,[325] £1,000,000 in retiring Exchequer bills, and the remainder in swelling the Exchequer balances in hand at the Bank, which stood at £8,606,000—a sum which, he admitted, was excessive. He had sold £3,000,000 of new Consols privately to the public, and £4,000,000 of them to the National Debt Commissioners, which enabled him to pay the cost of buying up the telegraphs. To wipe out this fresh debt of £7,000,000, he had created terminable annuities which would cease in 1885. For the coming year he estimated a revenue of £71,450,000 and an expenditure of £67,113,000, so that, if taxes were not altered, he would have a surplus of £4,337,000. Of this he disposed by reducing the Income Tax to fourpence in the £, halving the sugar duties, and altering the tax of 5 per cent. on the passenger receipts of railway companies to 1 per cent. on their gross receipts. After these remissions, Mr. Lowe still kept in reserve a probable surplus of £311,000. He proposed, however, with the consent of the Committee, to increase the rigour of tax-collection, to substitute for game licences, licences to carry guns, and to abolish hawkers’ licences and several other trade licences. The Budget was well received, but it was not one that strengthened the Government politically. With such a large surplus, Mr. Lowe might have conciliated the farmers by dealing with the Malt Tax, more especially as he admitted he owed much of his surplus to the fall in wheat. In three years it had dropped from 72s. to 42s. a quarter, and cheap food had produced an increased consumption of dutiable articles, i.e., an “elastic revenue.” Still he was credited with having influenced one decision of the Ministry which was extremely popular in the country—their decision to throw the whole Civil Service, with the exception of the Foreign Office, open to competition, like the Civil Service of India. This heavy blow at privilege was struck on the 4th of June, when the Queen signed the Order in Council which gave rich and poor alike the same passport to the service of the State, and relieved members of Parliament from the annoyance of being pestered for “nominations” by aggressive constituents.
The management of the defensive services of the country in 1870 further illustrated the susceptibility of the Ministry to democratic pressure. Mr. Cardwell, however, failed to get credit for that portion of his work which was good, mainly because he gave the House of Commons the impression that he strove to evade inconvenient questions by cloudy verbosity, that he was too much at the mercy of his official subordinates, and had not the knowledge or the vigour to check the accuracy of the soothing and roseate
COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT.
statements which they poured through his facile lips into the House of Commons. His estimates (£13,000,000) showed a reduction of £2,000,000, and, with Reserves and Auxiliaries, he asserted that he had a force of 322,000 men in the nine military districts of the United Kingdom. He proposed that recruits should serve for six years in the Line, and six in the Reserve, and he reduced the number of subaltern officers. These estimates and figures were, however, vitiated by the suspicion that the strength of the Army was mainly on paper, that it lacked efficient transport and artillery, and that even when Mr. Cardwell said, as he did towards the end of the Session, when the Franco-Prussian War created a panic as to national defences, that he could detach for active service a perfectly-equipped force of 30,000 men, he had an inadequate conception of national wants. The Ministerial policy raised up two different classes of opponents. To conciliate the Radicals, the Government cut down the Estimates by reducing the fighting power of the Army. The militant Radicals, however, declared that they desired to increase, rather than reduce the strength of the Army, and complained that the money for this purpose was not obtained by checking waste at the War Office and Horse Guards. The Party of “the Colonels” in the House of Commons were incensed against the Government for making reductions, that interfered with their professional interests. In midsummer, however, Mr. Cardwell effected one reform, by sanctioning which the Queen won great popularity at the time. Her Majesty, by signing an Order which made the Duke of Cambridge, Commanding-in-Chief, subordinate to the Secretary of State for War, ended a conflict which had been waged for years between the War Office and the Horse Guards. Every Sovereign of the House of Hanover had fought with stubbornness for the direct control of the Army, and Parliamentary influence over it was still indirect. To make it absolute, it would have been necessary to refuse supplies, and the Secretary of State, as the agent of Parliament, could only address requests, and not orders, to the Commander-in-Chief. Mr. Gladstone’s ears were quick to hear the first murmurings of the democracy against exempting this Department of the State, from Parliamentary control and supervision. There was also a suspicion abroad that no reform could be forced on the Army, whilst the Queen’s cousin held absolute power over it as the Queen’s agent. Rather than give enemies of the Monarchy a pretext for a Republican agitation based on a popular cry, Mr. Gladstone advised the Queen to surrender to the Secretary of State that part of the Royal prerogative by which the internal discipline of the Army was entirely regulated by her direct action.
Mr. Childers, not being hampered by a rival authority like that which the Duke of Cambridge wielded over the army, was able to adopt a vigorous policy of Reform at the Admiralty. His estimates amounted to £9,000,000, and for that sum he promised to strengthen the fleet by fifty of the most powerful iron-clads in the world, and to build at the rate of 13,000 tons a year till twenty more first-class iron-clads were afloat. He reduced the clerical staff of his office, effected sweeping reductions in the dockyards, and instead of keeping vessels in dock, sent as many to sea as were fit for service. Mr. Baxter, the Secretary to the Admiralty, abolished the old system of making purchases by contract, and instead, bought stores in the open market after the manner of private firms. The outcry raised against both Ministers from the vested interests which they assailed was loud and deep. Their policy was unscrupulously misrepresented, and it created for the Government a host of active and irrepressible enemies. The fatigues of office and the harassments of the attacks which were made upon him in the House of Commons for saving the taxpayers’ money, undermined Mr. Childers’ health in June, and for a month he had to abandon all work. The loss of the turret-ship Captain, one of the most powerful iron-clads in the Navy, which was capsized off Cape Finisterre in a gale in September, with all her crew—including her designer, Captain Coles, and Mr. Childers’ son, who was serving on board as a midshipman—clouded the naval administration of the Government. The ship went down because she was overmasted and overweighted, and had not enough freeboard. It was, moreover, unfortunate that naval experts who had in vain pointed out these defects to the Admiralty had warned them that she was unsafe before she was sent to sea.
Lord Granville’s Colonial policy, it has been stated, was directed to further the severance of the Colonies from the Mother Country. The controversy was chiefly fought out over New Zealand, which had been seriously grieved by the withdrawal of Imperial troops when she was engaged in Maori warfare. After much irritating discussion, Lord Granville attempted to conciliate the colonists by a niggardly offer of a guarantee for a loan of £500,000, which was rejected by the Colonial Commissioners. But in May he became alarmed when he found out that his policy was forcing separation on the colony, and that the idea of separation was hateful to the English people. He then offered to guarantee a loan of £1,200,000, and this was accepted as a token that the scheme he was supposed to favour—that of cutting the Colonies adrift—was, for a time, abandoned.[326] But the death of Lord Clarendon on the 27th of June enabled Mr. Gladstone to transfer Lord Granville to the Foreign Office, and Lord Kimberley reigned in his stead over the discontented Colonies.
Lord Clarendon’s death happened at an evil time, for Europe was distracted by the war between France and Prussia which had at last broken out. It is a curious fact that at the beginning of the year none of the diplomatists—not even Von Bismarck himself—had the faintest suspicion that ere six months had passed, this war would be declared. The Emperor of the French was watching in July, 1869, with straining eyes the election of a new Legislature. This election, as we have seen, ended in the return of a strong Opposition, headed by M. Thiers, M. Jules Favre, and M. Emile Ollivier, whose criticism of personal Government drove Napoleon to make popular concessions. A Parliamentary Constitution was granted, and at the end of the year the Emperor had induced M. Ollivier and a few moderate Liberals to form a Cabinet charged with the mission of reconciling Parliamentary Government with Universal Suffrage and the claims of the Imperial dynasty. The Emperor discarded the old friends who had been the servile instruments of his will, but shrewd Liberals still held aloof from the Imperial Court and Government, apparently distrusting his sincerity. And they were right. The Emperor considered that his new Liberal Constitution should be revised by the Senate, and the ever-subservient Senate accordingly inserted in it a provision authorising the Emperor to “go behind” his Parliamentary Ministry, and submit any question to a plébiscite. This of course meant that whenever Parliament thwarted the Emperor, he could set aside its decision and appeal on a confused issue to a hasty vote of an ignorant democracy, whose verdict was pre-arranged by subservient Prefects. The new Constitution itself was submitted to such a vote, and though M. Ollivier remained in office, most of his abler colleagues resigned. By a majority of five and a quarter millions against a million and a half, the people cast their suffrages for the Emperor. The issue on which they voted was nominally whether they approved of the Constitution reforms which he and the Senate had effected. In reality, it was whether Napoleon III. should, in spite of Parliament, be allowed still to rule France from above. The first result of the vote was the appointment of a Ministry in which M. Ollivier was the sole representative of Liberal feeling, or Constitutional instincts. The Duc de Gramont became Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Marshal Lebœuf, the Minister of War. But fifty thousand soldiers had voted against the Emperor in the plébiscite, and Napoleon III. was accordingly warned that to conciliate the army something must be done by France to eclipse the fame which Prussia had won at Sadowa. His envoys and agents in Germany assured him that the German States hated Prussia, and in their hearts looked to France for deliverance. As a matter of fact, it was German hatred of France and the German terror of a French occupation, that was binding them closer to Prussia. French intrigues might have delayed the union of Germany, but French aggression was certain to precipitate it, and yet Napoleon resolved to adopt an aggressive policy. As for the means, they were ready to his hand. Did not Marshal Lebœuf report that the re-organised army of France could go anywhere and do anything? There was not even a button wanting, and the new chassepot and mitrailleuse must annihilate any troops that faced their fire. The pretext for the quarrel was soon found. Spain had long been looking for a King. She offered her crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. On the 6th of July the Duc de Gramont angrily declared in the Legislature that if Prussia permitted a Prussian Prince to accept the Crown of Spain, France would consider his acceptance as a cause of war. In vain did the Opposition warn the Emperor and his Ministers that such a war would be unjustifiable and disastrous. Paris went into a frenzy of delight at the prospect of a march to Berlin. Ever anxious to promote the cause of peace, the Queen personally strove to avert hostilities, and so far as Prussia was concerned with some success. The English Court and the English Cabinet induced King William to advise Prince Leopold to refuse the Spanish Crown. King William’s magnanimity and moderation in making this concession to the arrogant demands of France were ill-requited. M. Ollivier, it is true, announced to the Legislature that the dispute was at an end, and Europe breathed freely. But to the amazement of everybody it soon appeared that M. Ollivier had been duped, for instead of crossing the golden bridge of retreat which the King of Prussia generously built for him, Napoleon put forward a fresh demand. It was not enough, said he, that Prince Leopold’s candidature should be withdrawn. King William, as head of the Hohenzollerns, must give a pledge that he would never in all time coming permit a Hohenzollern to aspire to the Crown of Spain. The insolent claim was rejected. A sensational and mendacious statement in the French Ministerial Press, to the effect that King William had rudely refused even to grant an audience to the French Ambassador, lashed the Parisians into a warlike mood. This insult, the Duc de Gramont, amid a tempest of cheering, told the French Chamber could only be avenged by a war—a war into which M. Ollivier airily observed he went “with a light heart.” On the 16th of July the French Declaration of War was delivered at Berlin, and French armies were moving towards the Rhine, with Parisian screams of “À Berlin!” ringing in their ears.