THE PRINCESS LOUISE.
(From a Photograph by Elliott and Fry.)
meetings was unspeakable. This unexpected ebullition of public feeling was due to a belief among the electors that when Royalty formed matrimonial alliances with subjects it ought to accept the rule which prevails among persons of private station, and frankly recognise that it is the duty of the husband to support the wife. To demand a dowry of £40,000 and an income of £6,000 a year for the Princess Louise, it was argued, was preposterous. The lady, it was said, could not possibly need it, seeing that she was to marry a nobleman who was able to maintain his wife, and who, had he not married a princess, would have been expected to maintain her in the comfort befitting his inherited rank and social position. But common sense soon reasserted its sway over the nation. It was then speedily admitted that a great country lowered its dignity when it chaffered with the Sovereign over allowances which were necessary to sustain a becoming stateliness of life in the Royal Family.[2]
THE MARQUIS OF LORNE.
(From a Photograph by Elliott and Fry.)
In the course of the discussions that were carried on as to the dowry of the Princess Louise many ill-natured allusions had been made to the Queen’s life of seclusion, and it had been broadly hinted that she was neglecting her public duties. It was unfortunate that steps were not taken by some person in authority to refute this calumny, for, if her Majesty shunned the nervous excitement of public ceremonials, it was for the purpose of husbanding her strength for the transaction of official business. Still, the people were kept in ignorance of that fact, and the result was that when the Queen proceeded in person to open Parliament on the 9th of February, 1871, she was for the first time in her life rather coldly received on the route from the Palace to Westminster. The Speech from the Throne dealt chiefly with Foreign Affairs, and it represented fairly the national feeling in favour of a policy of neutrality, tempered, however, with a strong desire to preserve the existence of France as “a principal and indispensable member of the great Commonwealth of Europe.” Two points in it were recognised as being in a special sense the expression of the Queen’s own views. These were (1), the cordial congratulation of Germany on having attained a position of “solidity and independence,” and (2), the carefully-guarded suggestion that Germany should be content with the cession of a mountain barrier beyond the Rhine on her new frontier, and not endanger the permanence of the peace, which must soon come by pressing for the cession of French fortresses, which, in German hands, must be a standing menace to France. Perhaps the most popular paragraph in the Speech was the one which indicated that the Governments of England and the United States, after much futile and bitter controversy, were at last agreed that the Alabama dispute should be settled by friendly arbitration before a mixed Commission. The instinct of the masses taught them that the “latent war,” as Mr. Hamilton Fish called it, between the two kindred peoples, explained why England had suddenly lost her influence in the councils of Europe. By its reference to Home Affairs, the Royal Speech, for the time, strengthened the popularity of the Ministry. It promised a Ballot Bill, a Bill for abolishing University Tests, for readjusting Local Taxation, for restricting the grants of Licences to Publicans, for reorganising Scottish Education, and for reforming the Army. When the Debate on the Address was taken, the House of Commons was obviously in a state of high nervous tension. It was half angry with Mr. Gladstone because he had not pursued a more spirited Foreign Policy, and because, by submitting to the abolition of the Black Sea Clauses of the Treaty of Paris, and assuming an isolated attitude towards France and Germany, he had made England the mere spectator of great events, the course of which she yearned to influence, if not to control. On the other hand, the House showed plainly that it was thankful that the country had been kept out of the embarrassments and entanglements of war. Indeed it was clear that, if Mr. Gladstone had pursued a more spirited policy at the risk of enforcing it by arms, he would have been hurled from power by the votes of the very men who now sneered at his policy because it was spiritless.
Mr. Disraeli’s tone was less patriotic than usual. He was careful to say nothing that would commit him and his party to any other policy than that of neutrality; but he was equally careful to encourage a belief that this policy had been adopted, not from prudence, but from cowardice. To use one of his own phrases, he “threatened Russia with a clouded cane;” though, as he knew well, the Black Sea dispute had by that time ended. He endangered the prospects of peaceful arbitration on the Alabama Claims, by his bitter allusions to the United States. He poured ridicule on the military feebleness of the country at a crisis when a patriotic statesman would have naturally preferred to remain silent on such a theme. But the effect of his attack was somewhat diminished by his attempt to show that military impotence was naturally associated with Liberal Governments. Everybody knew that all governments, Liberal or Tory, were equally responsible for the bad state of the army, and that they had all equally resisted the popular demand for reform, till it grew so loud that Mr. Cardwell was forced to yield to it.
The great measure of the Session was of course the Army Bill, which was introduced by Mr. Cardwell, on the 16th of February. It abolished the system by which rich men obtained by purchase commissions and promotion in the army, and provided £8,000,000 to buy all commissions, as they fell in, at their regulation and over-regulation value.[3] In future, commissions were to be awarded either to those who won them by open competition, or who had served as subalterns in the Militia, or to deserving non-commissioned officers. Mr. Cardwell also proposed to deprive Lords-Lieutenant of Counties of the power of granting commissions in the militia. He laid down the lines of a great scheme of army reorganisation which bound the auxiliary forces closer to the regular army, gave the country 300,000 trained men, divided locally into nine corps d’armée, for home defence, kept in hand a force of 100,000 men always available for service abroad, and raised the strength of the artillery from 180 to 336 guns. This, however, he did at the cost of £15,000,000 a year—a somewhat extravagant sum, seeing that 170,000 of the army of defence consisted of unpaid volunteers. The debate that followed was a rambling one. The Tory Party defended the Purchase system because good officers had come to the front by its means. Even a Radical like Mr. Charles Buxton was not ashamed to argue that promotion by selection on account of fitness, would sour the officers who were passed over with discontent. Lord Elcho, though he made a “palpable hit” in detecting the inadequacy of Mr. Cardwell’s scheme of National Defence, sedulously avoided justifying the sale of commissions in the army. He based his objection to the abolition of Purchase on the ground that it would involve “the most wicked, the most wanton, the most uncalled for waste of the public money.” Here we have depicted a vivid contrast between the House of Commons of the Second, and the House of the Third Reform Bill. In these latter days Lord Wemyss—who in 1871 was Lord Elcho—would hardly venture to obstruct any measure of reform because there was tacked on to it a scheme for compensating “vested interests” too generously. The Representatives of the People would now meet such an objection by simply cutting down the compensation. And Mr. Cardwell had an excellent opportunity for doing this ready to his hands. The money paid for commissions was far above the regulation price, and yet it was a statutory offence punishable by two years’ imprisonment to pay over-regulation prices. In fact, Parliament may be said to have betrayed the country in this transaction. Not only had it connived at the offence of paying over-regulation money, but it made its connivance a pretext for compensating the offenders for the loss of advantages they had gained by breaking the law.