THE QUEEN VISITING THE WARDS OF THE LONDON HOSPITAL.
real necessity for change. The Imperial title was also surrounded with evil associations, and it suggested that Imperialism or personal Government, tempered by casual appeals for support to the democracy or the Army over the head of Parliament, was the end aimed at by the Ministerial policy. Mr. Disraeli’s haughty refusal to communicate the new title to the House of Commons was met by a motion that no progress be made with the Bill till the title was revealed. The Prime Minister accordingly yielded the point, and promised to give the necessary explanations before the Bill was read a second time. The debate on the Second Reading showed clearly that the House of Commons was hostile to the Bill; but as the Government gave a pledge that the title should be used in India only, the Second Reading was carried. This pledge was soon broken, for the Proclamation was made, not that the new title should be used in India, but that it might be used
THE ALBERT MEMORIAL, CHARLOTTE SQUARE, EDINBURGH.
everywhere save in the United Kingdom. The Peers were as reluctant as the Commons to sanction the adoption of any exotic titles by the Crown, and the Court did not scruple to bring personal pressure to bear on them for the purpose of overcoming their threatened opposition. Lord Shaftesbury was summoned to Windsor in early spring, and as it was twenty years since he had been the Queen’s guest, he says in his Diary that he assumed his invitation was brought about by the controversy then raging over the Royal Titles Bill. “I dread it [the visit],” he writes in his Diary, on the 12th of March, “the cold, the evening dress, the solitude, for I am old, and dislike being far away from assistance should I be ill at night.... She [the Queen] sent for me in 1848 to consult me on a very important matter. Can it be so now?” The next entry showed his foreboding to be correct. He says, on the 14th of March, “Returned from Windsor. I am sure it was so, though not distinctly avowed. Her Majesty personally said nothing.” But though she did not discuss the views he expressed to her, a Lord-in-Waiting formally requested him to communicate them to Mr. Disraeli. Mr. Disraeli paid no heed to them, and Lord Shaftesbury accordingly moved (3rd of April), in the House of Lords, an Address to the Queen praying her not to take the title of Empress. He pointed out that in time it would lose its present impression of feminine softness, and be transformed into “Emperor,” whereupon “it must have an air military, despotic, offensive, and intolerable.” To scoff as Mr. Disraeli had done at the popular dislike to the Imperial title as a mere “sentiment” was a mistake. “Loyalty itself,” observed Lord Shaftesbury, “was a sentiment, and the same sentiment that attached the people to the word Queen, averted them from that of ‘Empress.’” In the division, though the Government obtained 137 votes in favour of what the Saturday Review called a “vulgar and impolitic innovation,” eight Dukes and a large body of habitual courtiers voted with Lord Shaftesbury in the minority of 91.[91] The dismal predictions of the opponents of the measure have not been verified—possibly because their protests convinced the Court that any ostentatious display of modern Imperialism by an ancient Constitutional Monarchy would lead to a recrudescence of the Republic agitation. Fortunately the heated debates on the Titles Bill did not affect the personal popularity of the Sovereign. In the midst of the controversy the Queen visited Whitechapel on the 6th of March, to open a new wing of the London Hospital, which had been built by the munificence of the Grocers’ Company. Her Majesty was enthusiastically received, the only complaint being that she drove too fast along the route where the populace swarmed in their thousands to gaze on her. The visit was taken to be an intimation that the Crown was not a mere toy of the aristocratic quarters of the capital, and that when the Queen emerged from her seclusion it was not solely for the purpose of benefiting the West End shopkeepers. “The bees welcome their Queen,” was one of the mottoes displayed on the route. “I was sick and ye visited me,” was another, and both inscriptions reflected the kindly feeling with which her Majesty was greeted by industrial London. In the Hospital many interesting incidents were recorded, one of the most touching being that of a little girl who was suffering from a severe burn, and who had said she was sure she would get better if she “could only see the Queen.” When this was communicated to her Majesty, she smiled, went straightway to the child’s cot, where she kissed her, and soothed her with many tender words of comfort.
Sir Stafford Northcote’s Budget was a doleful statement of increased expenditure, and diminished income from a revenue that had ceased to be elastic. He estimated a deficit for the coming year of £774,000, and so he increased the income-tax to 5d. in the £, and added 4d. on the pound to the duty on tobacco. The latter tax was a mistake. It did not raise the price of tobacco to the poor, but it caused the manufacturers to adulterate their tobacco with water so as to add to its weight. The Session ended on the 15th of August, and next day the world heard with great surprise that Mr. Disraeli had become Earl of Beaconsfield, and to use his own jocose expression, that, “abandoning the style of Don Juan for that of Paradise Lost,” he would in future lead the House of Lords. Sir Stafford Northcote was left to represent him in the House of Commons.
On the 17th of August the Queen unveiled the Scottish National Memorial of Prince Albert, which had been erected in Charlotte Square, Edinburgh. The monument consisted of a colossal equestrian statue of the Prince Consort, and the four panels of the pedestal contained bas-reliefs illustrating notable events in his Royal Highness’s career. At each of the four corners of the platform on which the pedestal stands were groups of statuary, symbolical of the respect paid to Prince Albert’s memory by all classes of the community: one group typifying Labour, another Science and Art, a third the Army and Navy, and the fourth the Nobility. The equestrian figure and the panels were the work of the veteran Scottish sculptor, Mr. John Steell, who designed and superintended the construction of the memorial. The subordinate groups were executed by Mr. D. W. Stevenson, Mr. Clark Stanton, Mr. Brodie, and Mr. George McCallum, a young artist of high promise, who died before his group was completed. The ceremony of unveiling was unusually interesting. A gaily-decorated pavilion had been raised for the occasion. The Queen was accompanied by Prince Leopold, the Princess Beatrice, and the Duke of Connaught. Under the command of the Duke of Buccleuch, the Royal Company of Archers formed the bodyguard. The Duke of Roxburghe, Lord Rosebery, Sir W. Gibson-Craig, the Earl of Selkirk, the Earl of Lauderdale, Lord Provost Falshaw, and the Town Council, were among the distinguished persons present. After the statue had, at her Majesty’s command, been uncovered, she walked round it and expressed her entire satisfaction with the memorial. To signalise her appreciation of what had been done, and to manifest her desire to honour her “faithful city,” Mr. Falshaw was created a baronet, and a knighthood was conferred on Mr. John Steell, and on Mr. Herbert Oakeley, Professor of Music in the University.
During the Recess, the country could think of nothing save the Eastern Question. Mr. Gladstone’s taste