When Parliament assembled in 1872 Mr. Gladstone found himself confronted by an Opposition which had been rendered almost insolently aggressive by their triumphs at the bye-elections. He found himself supported by a majority, each section of which had its special grievance against him. And if he looked beyond Parliament for support he might have seen that a subtle popular suspicion was growing up round his name which was fast neutralising the magic of his personality. It was said, alike by friends and foes, that an overweening love for personal power, and a passion for exercising personal authority over others, had become the guiding motives of his life, and the inspiring ideas of his policy. Had this been true, it is hardly likely that the Prime Minister would have identified himself with legislation which had set the vested interests, and the fanatical sectaries up in arms against him. But the important point was that, whether true or false, the calumny was believed, and the Queen, like many other careful observers, saw the Ministry growing weaker and weaker every day, whilst Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues were themselves under the delusion that every day increased their popularity. And yet, as if to justify the maxim that in politics it is the unexpected that happens, the year was not fruitful in crises or in sensational scenes. Mr. Disraeli held his followers in check, and the Session was a business-like one, which, when it ended, left the Government stronger than could have been anticipated.
The Parliamentary year was opened on the 6th of February, the Queen’s Speech being read by Commission. It promised a Ballot Bill, and Bills for organising Education in Scotland, for regulating Mines, and for improving the Licensing System. The passage in the Speech to which, however, all eyes turned was the one dealing with the Alabama Claims. On this subject the country had suddenly become profoundly agitated, and from an observation in Bishop Wilberforce’s Diary we gather that the Queen, shared the popular feeling of the hour.[38] After the nation had congratulated itself on discovering a diplomatic solution of its difficulties with the American Republic, it was amazed to find that the Americans were endeavouring to seize by chicane what they had failed to gain by diplomacy. When they forwarded the case which they meant to submit to Arbitration, it was discovered that they had included in it not only a claim for the actual damage done to American commerce by the Confederate cruisers, but also the claims for the indirect or “consequential damages” which Mr. Sumner had put forward, and which the British Commissioners understood were abandoned. The sum asked under this head would have covered half the cost of the whole Civil War. It was therefore the clear opinion of the Queen that England could not consent to go into Arbitration till this preposterous demand was withdrawn. Lord Granville, on the other hand, though he inclined to this opinion, was slow to reply to a demand which he was in honour bound to promptly repel. He was chiefly concerned about saving the Washington Treaty, and he therefore sent to the American Government a mild letter requesting the withdrawal of the “indirect claims” in terms so deferentially conciliatory, that had he been dealing with a less pacific Power his despatch would probably have been answered with the cynical
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brusquerie that marked Von Bismarck’s dealings with him. But the country was not as meek as the Minister. There was an outburst of popular anger against the Americans for the “sharp practice” which sullied their statement of claim, and Mr. Gladstone soon saw that to go into Arbitration before the demand for “consequential damages” was withdrawn would lead to his expulsion from office. His declarations in Parliament on the subject thenceforth showed that he meant to repudiate the American interpretation of the Treaty under which the “indirect claims” had been dragged into the American case, and he spoke with the high spirit of a statesman rejecting a humiliating demand for tribute greater than conquest itself could extort. The Opposition in both Houses, on the whole, gave the Government generous support in this emergency, though Mr. Disraeli—referring to the torrent of Ministerial oratory which had deluged the recess—could not refrain in his comment on the Queen’s Speech from deriding the Cabinet for having lately lived “in a blaze of apology.”
The story of the controversy on the “indirect claims” may here be told. The United States, in extremely conciliatory despatches, insisted on including these claims in their case. They argued that it was for the arbitrators at Geneva to say whether they were or were not admissible under the Treaty. They rested their contention on an ambiguous phrase which Lord Ripon and Sir Stafford Northcote had unfortunately permitted to pass unconnected into the Treaty. The first Article of that instrument described its object to be that of removing and adjusting “all complaints and claims,” &c., “growing out of acts committed by the said vessels, and generically known as the ‘Alabama’ Claims.” This certainly gave the Americans a plausible excuse for demanding “consequential” as well as direct damages. On the other side, the English Government argued that all the concessions made by the British Commissioners at Washington were made on the understanding that the “indirect claims” were not included in the Treaty; that in all their correspondence with the Washington Department of State no claims save direct claims were ever “generically” known as the Alabama Claims; and, lastly, that their interpretation was publicly expressed and well known to the United States Government, people, and Minister at the Court of St. James’s, and was never objected to by either of them. It would, however, have been easy to put the point beyond dispute when the Treaty was drawn up by specifically barring all indirect claims. When Lord Ripon and Sir Stafford. Northcote failed to do that they were guilty of negligence which, if brought home to the diplomatists of either Russia or Germany, would have procured for them, not rewards and honours, but punishment and degradation. Fortunately the dispute ended happily. Lord Granville for once acted with the firmness becoming the representative of a great nation. When the arbitrators met at Geneva, the representatives of England persistently refused to take part in the proceedings till the “indirect claims” were withdrawn. The arbitrators then adroitly extricated the agents of the Washington Government from a false position. They met and declared that, without reference to the scope of the Treaty or to the merits of the dispute as to its interpretation, which England refused to discuss before them, they were agreed that “indirect claims” could never, on general principles of international law, be a tenable ground for an award of damages in international disputes.
The Americans then withdrew the obnoxious part of their “case,” and the arbitrators awarded to the United States £3,229,000 damages against England for the depredations committed by three out of the ten Confederate cruisers which, it was alleged, the British Government had negligently permitted to escape from British ports. The American claim for naval expenses incurred in chasing these cruisers was, however, rejected, because the arbitrators held that it could not be practically distinguished from the general cost of the war. The Lord Chief Justice of England—one of the members of the Tribunal—concurred in the judgment as regards the Alabama. He differed from all his colleagues in regard to the Florida, and he and the Brazilian arbitrator differed from the majority as to the case of the Shenandoah.[39] The failure of the English Government to seize the Florida and Alabama, when they put into British ports after they had made their escape, was evidently the fact which bore most strongly against England in the opinion of the Geneva Tribunal. The American claims for damages in respect of the Georgia, Chickamauga, Nashville, Retribution, Sumter, and Tallahassee, were rejected. On the whole, public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic, though not quite satisfied with the verdict, allowed that there had been a fair fight and a fair trial. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn’s dissenting judgment, however, expressed the feeling of the English people, which was this. “Let us admit,” they said, “the ex post facto rule making neutrals liable for damages if they do not exercise ‘due diligence’—the ‘dueness of diligence’ to be always proportionate to the mischief the vessels might do—in preventing the escape of cruisers, and in re-capturing them when they get the chance. English officials were, however, not aware that, when these cruisers escaped and when on re-entering British ports they were not detained, international law demanded from them more ‘dueness’ of diligence than they had exercised or been taught to exercise. Hence it surely was wrong to give damages for their unconscious negligence, just as if their negligence had been conscious.” This argument, indeed, Sir Alexander Cockburn pressed to the point of cutting down to zero the claim for damages in respect of the Shenandoah and Florida.
One of the most important Government measures of the year was the Ballot Act. But the opposition to it was marked by no novelty of argument, and it need only be said about it here that it was passed, the Lords not venturing to reject it a second time.[40] The Scottish Education Bill, which also passed, established a School Board system of public instruction all over Scotland far in advance of that which England had been able to obtain. A Licensing Bill of a mildly regulative character was carried, the publicans grudgingly accepting it as a compromise, while the Temperance Party attacked it as miserably ineffective.[41] Mr. Stansfeld’s Public Health Bill, defining the authority which must in future be responsible for local sanitation, and embodying the principle that rates should be divided between the State and the locality was so adroitly managed by Mr. Stansfeld, that at last Mr. Disraeli supported the Government in carrying it. Another useful measure regulating the working of Coal Mines was carried in spite of many protests against interfering with private contracts between masters and servants, and many attempts on the part of the vested interests who were supported by the bulk of the Tory Party, to render the Bill inoperative. Among other things it prohibited the employment of women underground, and it made mine-owners responsible for the results of preventible mining accidents.
Mr. Cardwell’s Army Bill was received with unlocked for favour. It attempted to adapt the territorial system of Prussia to the exigencies of military service in England. The nine existing military divisions were subdivided into sixty-six military districts. In each of these a small army or brigade was formed, consisting of two battalions of Regulars, to which were linked the local Militia and Volunteers. One of the regular battalions was to be told off for foreign service, and its “waste” supplied by drafts from the territorial depôt. The main objection to the scheme urged by Conservative officers was that it destroyed the family life of the old regiments—that it even destroyed their identity by substituting local titles for the numbers which their prowess in war had in many cases made historic. According to this scheme the country would have an Army of 446,000 men, of whom 146,000 were available for service abroad. The evidence given before the Commission which reported on the wreck of the Megæra, concentrated attention on Admiralty Reform. On the whole, the country gave Mr. Childers credit for having brought order into that chaotic department. Before he came to power the various branches of the Admiralty had little or no connection with each other, and when a blunder was made by conflicting authority or contradictory orders, nobody could be made responsible. Mr. Childers set responsible officers at the head of each department, and made excellent arrangements for their mutual co-operation. But the weak point of his scheme was that he as First Lord was the real nexus which bound the whole organisation together. The system accordingly broke down when his health gave way, for Mr. Lushington, who was in a sense the Grand Vizier of the First Lord, was a civilian comparatively new to the department, and unable to act as an efficient substitute for Mr. Childers.[42] Mr. Goschen met the difficulty, not by appointing a naval expert as his second in command, but by casting responsibility for all orders on three officials—a Naval Secretary who was to be responsible for orders concerning the personnel, a Controller who was to be responsible for those relating to the matériel, and a Permanent Secretary who was to be responsible for those affecting finance and civil business. To secure unity of work the Board of Admiralty was to meet daily for consultation, and in the First Lord’s absence the supreme authority was to pass to the First Naval Lord of the Admiralty.