THE MOSQUE OF SAN SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE.
It assumed, that as the Porte had promised to carry out the reforms in the Andrassy Note, the Powers had now the right to force it to keep its pledges. It formulated the guarantees which Europe asked for in order to give effect to the Andrassy Note, and threatened Turkey with “more effective measures” of coercion if she failed to give them within two months after an armistice between her and her rebellious provinces had been concluded. The reason why the Note was minatory lay on the surface. The Consuls of France and Germany had been murdered by the Turks at Salonica, and before any redress could be obtained Prince Bismarck had to send the Porte an ultimatum that meant war. Lord Derby declined to assent to the Memorandum, on the ground that England had not been consulted in the preparing of it, and did not believe that it would do any good if presented. The Foreign Ministers of the Powers in vain implored him to reconsider his decision, and then the Memorandum was tossed into the waste-paper basket of diplomacy. Turkey, seeing that Lord Derby had broken up the European Concert at Berlin, behaved exactly as she did when Clarendon broke up the same instrument of coercion at Vienna. Her contumacy was intensified, and what was still more serious, her European vassals, seeing that diplomacy had failed to rescue them from misrule, took up arms. Within a month after the diplomatic triumph of England, the Turks found it had secured to them the following advantages:—(1), The Continental Powers withdrew from the field, and adopted an attitude of vigilant inactivity. (2), Servia and Montenegro declared war on Turkey. (3), The soil of Bulgaria was soaked with the blood of her Christian population, whose revolt had been quelled by massacres and ghastly atrocities, that rendered expulsion from Europe the manifest destiny of the Ottoman race. (4), The Sultan Abdul Aziz was dethroned by a mob of fanatical Moslems, and his European Empire lay wrecked in anarchy. It had been made a matter of complaint that the Foreign Policy of England in 1853 was slow in producing any effect. When we consider what happened in the month that followed the failure of the Berlin Memorandum, and the collapse of the European Concert, that complaint cannot be justly advanced against Mr. Disraeli’s Foreign Policy in 1876.
HERALDS AT THE MANSION HOUSE, PROCLAIMING THE QUEEN AS “EMPRESS OF INDIA.”
Parliament was opened on the 8th of February by the Queen in person, with great pomp and ceremony; and the Royal Speech promised several useful measures dealing with the Court of Appeal, Merchant Shipping, and Prisons. But the one that excited most public interest was the Bill to confer on the Sovereign a new title derived from India, in gracious acknowledgment of the enthusiastic reception given to the Prince of Wales by the natives of that Empire. As for the Slave Circular, the questions raised by it were to be referred to a Royal Commission. The Foreign Policy of the Government was expressed by Mr. Disraeli, in terms that appealed sympathetically to national feeling. It was based on the idea that England was responsible for the good use of her influence in the councils of Europe, and it united the Tory Party, and caused the country to condone all Ministerial blunders. The debate on the Eastern Question showed that Mr. Gladstone and other eminent Liberals approved of Lord Derby’s adherence to the Andrassy Note. But it clearly indicated that the Opposition would attack the Government if it adopted the old Crimean policy of supporting Turkey whenever she rejected the demands of Europe. The purchase of the Suez Canal Shares provoked more controversy. It turned out that they had been mortgaged by the Khedive, and could not yield dividends for nineteen years, a fact unknown to Mr. Disraeli when he bought them. Sir Stafford Northcote, therefore, proposed to borrow £4,000,000, and exact from the Khedive 5 per cent. a year on that sum to cover the loss of the mortgaged dividends. Mr. Gladstone attacked the financial details of the transaction,[87] and though his criticism was logical it failed to influence the country. Had the purchase of the Shares been solely a commercial speculation, the unbusiness-like manner in which it had been effected would have been of some importance. But it was also a stroke of high policy, and it appealed to the imperial instincts of the nation which, as Mr. Disraeli said, was getting “sea-sick of the silver streak.”[88] Most of Mr. Gladstone’s prophecies have been falsified by events. Oddly enough the only valid objections to the purchase of the Canal Shares were not pressed by him. They were (1), That a Canal which could be easily blocked and wrecked by an enemy’s ship, was not a safe route to India; and (2), That the fault of Mr. Disraeli’s policy was in his failure to carry it out to its logical conclusion—the establishment of a British Protectorate over Egypt, which would have rendered the final fate of Turkey, a matter of indifference to Englishmen. Parliament ratified the policy of the Government with enthusiasm. The appointment of the Royal Commission to examine all the difficulties raised by the Slave Circular saved Ministers from defeat at the end of the Debate on the issue of that stupid State Paper. The Government was also fortunate in its domestic legislation. The Merchant Shipping Bill, when it passed, was found to be a compromise which remedied most of the wrongs for which Mr. Plimsoll sought redress. Lord Sandon’s Education Act was a concession to the advocates of compulsory education, for it prohibited the employment of children under ten, and it prohibited the employment of children between ten and fourteen, who had not attended school 250 times a year and passed an examination in the Fourth Standard. In fact, the Bill legalised, not direct, but indirect compulsion. Bills restricting the practice of vivisection, and restoring to the House of Lords its Appellate Jurisdiction, but adding to it Judges of Appeal, who would be Peers during their tenure of office, and who, with the ex-Chancellor, would discharge the judicial functions of the Upper House, were also passed. For the meagre achievements of the Session three reasons may be given: (1), Much time was lost over the Education Act, because not only was it necessary for the Opposition to tone down its reactionary clauses, but concessions to the opponents of School Boards were suddenly sprung upon the House by Lord Sandon, which had to be fiercely resisted. (2), The policy of obstruction which had been adopted with so much success to delay Mr. Forster’s Ballot Bill in 1883, was now developed in an ingenious manner by Messrs. Biggar and Parnell. They “blocked” Bills indiscriminately, so as to bring them under the rule which forbade opposed measures to be taken after half-past twelve at night. They moved adjournments in various forms at half-past twelve, on the ground that the hour was too far advanced for discussion. They were always on the watch to “count out” the House, and they never missed a chance of “talking out” a Bill,[89] quite regardless of its merits. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar thus taught themselves to be formidable debaters at the expense of the House, for, as Mr. Parnell once told a friend, the best way to learn the rules of Parliament is to break them.[90] (3), A great deal of time was also wasted in discussing the Royal Titles Bill, to which the Liberals offered an amount of opposition out of all proportion to the significance of the measure.
The Royal Titles Bill was introduced by the Prime Minister on the 7th of February. He had some idea that it would be an offence against the prerogative if he stated what the new title was to be, but it was said that the Queen, ever since the Duchess of Edinburgh had claimed precedence over her sisters-in-law, on the ground that hers was an Imperial, whilst theirs was a Royal title, desired to be styled Empress of India. On the other hand, most people objected to change the Queen’s designation. Why, it was asked, should the successor of Egbert wish to be a modern Empress? To insert India in the existing form of the Royal title would adequately meet any