Ministers also lost much of their popularity through Mr. Disraeli’s tenderness towards owners of unseaworthy ships. Mr. Plimsoll had stirred
THE MARQUIS OF HARTINGTON.
(From a Photograph by Russell and Sons.)
up public opinion against the “ship-knackers,” as he called them, who, having over-insured vessels that were rotten, sent them away to founder at sea with their crews, and then put the insurance money in their pockets. The Board of Trade had rather frowned on his efforts to get it to detain unseaworthy ships for survey, but in deference to popular pressure the Government had promised to bring in a Merchant Shipping Bill to check the evil which Mr. Plimsoll had discovered and denounced. The Bill was read a second time in the Commons without opposition, and it was one in which the Queen was said to be as much interested as Mr. Plimsoll himself. But Mr. Disraeli had brought forward a measure permitting farmers to receive compensation for unexhausted improvements, and enabling landlords to deny them this compensation by contracting themselves out of the Bill. He had contrived to get Government business into confusion by trying to push on Ministerial measures abreast instead of in single file, and in a fatal moment he shelved the Merchant Shipping Bill, in order to make way for the perfectly worthless Agricultural Holdings Bill. He announced the fact on the 22nd of July, when Mr. Goschen entered a mild protest.
Mr. Plimsoll, however, rose quivering with rage and passion, and moved the adjournment of the House. He not only protested against the Government postponing a Bill that interfered with “the unhallowed gains” of the “shipknackers,” but said that some of them sat in the House, and mentioned by name one of “the villains” he was determined to “unmask.” In vain the Speaker called him to order. Louder and louder grew the turmoil, and in the midst of it Mr. Disraeli grew visibly pale when Mr. Plimsoll rushed up the floor of the House with his clenched fist extended in front of him. However, he did not strike the Premier or Sir Charles Adderley—who was officially in charge of the Bill—as had been dreaded. He merely stood on one leg, placed a written protest on the table, and then, having shaken his fist in the Speaker’s face, marched out of the Chamber amidst a scene of terrible disorder. Mr. Disraeli lost his temper and, with it, touch of the House for a moment. In angry accents he moved that Mr. Plimsoll be reprimanded there and then, whereupon the Speaker interfered, and said that before a motion of that sort could be put Mr. Plimsoll, who was now standing below the bar, must be heard in his place. Mr. Plimsoll, however, preferred immediate withdrawal, and the House was on the eve of entering into conflict with a defiant Member, supported by an irresistible force of democratic passion in the country, a conflict from which it must have emerged with impaired authority, when suddenly Lord Hartington came to the rescue. His frigid accents, in strong contrast with Mr. Disraeli’s tremulous tones of wrath, immediately cooled the temper of the House. Mr. Plimsoll was, said Lord Hartington, merely suffering from “overstrain acting on a very sensitive temperament, and before taking any strong measures against a man so universally respected, it would be more consonant with the dignity of the House to give him reasonable time to put himself right.” Mr. Disraeli instantly saw that Lord Hartington’s phlegmatic sense had suggested the course that would extricate him from the dangerous position into which he was leading the House, and he consented to adjourn the matter for a week. Mr. Plimsoll made an honourable apology to the Speaker, and the matter ended happily, but the incident, to the gratification of the country, revealed in Lord Hartington a capacity for cool and adroit leadership, the existence of which had hitherto been unsuspected. The day after the scene in the House of Commons a storm of agitation broke over the country on behalf of Mr. Plimsoll. From every constituency remonstrances couched in terms of strong indignation poured in upon the House of Commons. Tory Members warned the Whips that they did not dare to run athwart the wave of passion that swept over the land. The Cabinet accordingly held a meeting in a panic, and resolved to bring in a temporary Bill empowering the Board of Trade to detain rotten ships and to prohibit grain cargoes from being carried in bulk. The measure was passed, even the Peers shrinking from the responsibility of rejecting it.
Another blunder damaged Mr. Disraeli’s leadership. In April Mr. Charles Lewis moved that the printer of the Times be summoned to the Bar and dealt with for printing a letter reflecting on a Member of the House of Commons, in a report of evidence given before the Foreign Loans Committee. It was an attempt to carry out the old Standing Order, which made it an offence for newspapers to report Parliamentary proceedings. Mr. Disraeli first spoke against the motion, and then voted for it. It was carried. But next day he moved that the Order be discharged, and when Mr. Sullivan asked him if he intended to put the relations of the Press and Parliament on a less anomalous footing, he answered “No.” Thereupon Mr. Sullivan warned him he would insist on carrying out the ridiculous old Standing Order, and clearing the House of reporters every night till Mr. Disraeli yielded. Lord Hartington induced Mr. Sullivan to refrain, but Mr. Biggar next stepped in, and with elfish humour, one night when the Prince of Wales was listening to a debate, rose and said he “espied strangers in the House,” which was duly cleared of every one—including the Prince—save Members. The two leaders then carried a motion suspending the ridiculous Order for that evening. Mr. Disraeli, however, still refused to alter the rule or accept a proposal from Lord Hartington for altering it. Mr. Sullivan accordingly retorted by again “espying strangers,” clearing the House, and compelling the Government to adjourn an important debate. Mr. Disraeli now saw he had no choice but to surrender. He therefore carried a new Standing Order, enabling the Speaker to exclude strangers when he saw fit, but submitting the attempt of a private Member to clear the House, to the check of an immediate and undebateable vote.
Sir Stafford Northcote’s Budget was ominous of hard times coming. Prices were beginning to fall, and unsound Foreign Loans, in which rich people had invested, were beginning to collapse. Sir Stafford Northcote, therefore, though he received half a million more revenue than he expected, wisely made no sanguine estimate for the ensuing year. His anticipated expenditure he put at £75,268,000, an increase of £939,000, and his revenue at £75,685,000, showing a probable surplus of £417,000, which was ultimately converted by supplementary estimates into an estimated deficit of £300,000—a bad contrast to the miraculous surplus of £6,000,000, which in the previous year he inherited from Mr. Gladstone. There was no special feature in the Budget, save the scheme fixing the charge for the paying up the interest and the principal of the National Debt in future at £28,000,000 a year, and making it obligatory to meet this sum before any surplus could be declared. It was, in fact, a plan for establishing a rigid Sinking Fund to discharge the National Debt, and though it was popular at the time, it failed, as all such plans fail, because whenever a difficulty arises Ministers of Finance always confiscate a Sinking Fund in preference to imposing new taxes.