Only two arguments worthy of the least attention were brought forward by the Opposition. The first was that abolition of Purchase would weaken the regimental system. For it was contended that promotion by selection for officers above the rank of captain—which was the substitute proposed for promotion by Purchase—involving, as it did, transfers from one regiment to another, must destroy the regimental home-life.[4] The second was, that it would tend to create a professional military caste, who might, as Mr. Bernal Osborne argued, prove dangerous to the liberties of the people. It was, however, felt that it was absurd to sacrifice the efficiency of the Army to its regimental home life, and that one of the strongest objections to the Purchase system was that it rendered the Army amateurish rather than professional. But in the long controversy that raged through the Session no argument told more effectively than Mr. Trevelyan’s citation of Havelock’s bitter complaint that “he was sick for years in waiting for promotion, that three sots and two fools had purchased over him, and that if he had not had a family to support he would not have served another hour.” Mr. Cardwell, too, left nothing to be said when he told the House of Commons that Army reformers were paralysed by Purchase. Every proposal for change was met by the argument that it affected the position of officers who had paid for that position. In fact, the British Army was literally held in pawn by its officers, and the nation had virtually no control over it whilst it was in that ignominious position. The debate, which seemed interminable, ended in an anti-climax that astonished the Tory Opposition. Mr. Disraeli threw over the advocates of Purchase, evidently dreading an appeal to the country, which might have resulted in a refusal to compensate officers for the over-regulation prices they had paid for their commissions in defiance of the statute. The Army Regulation Bill thus passed the Second Reading without a division. In Committee the Opposition resorted to obstructive tactics, and attempted to talk out the Bill by moving a series of dilatory and frivolous amendments. The clique of “the Colonels,” as they were called, in fact anticipated the Parnellites of a later date in inventing and developing
INVERARY CASTLE.
(From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co.)
this form of factious and illegitimate opposition. Mr. Cardwell so far succumbed that after weary weeks of strife he withdrew his reorganisation scheme, merely insisting on the Purchase clauses, and on the transference of control over the auxiliary forces from Lords-Lieutenant of Counties to the Queen. But the Opposition still threatened to obstruct the Bill, and it was not till Mr. Cardwell warned them that he could stop the payment of over-regulation money for commissions by enforcing the law, that the measure was allowed to pass. In the House of Lords the Bill was again obstructed, in spite of Lord Northbrook’s able argument that until Purchase was abolished the Government could not develop their scheme of Army reorganisation, which was to introduce into England the Prussian system without compulsory service. The Tory Peers did not actually venture to vote in favour of Purchase. But they passed a resolution declining to accept the responsibility of assenting to its abolition without further information. Mr. Gladstone met them with a bold stroke. By statute it was enacted that only such terms of Purchase could exist as her Majesty chose to permit by Royal Warrant. The Queen therefore, acting on Mr. Gladstone’s advice, cancelled her warrant permitting Purchase, and thus the opposition of the Peers was crushed by what Mr. Disraeli indignantly termed “the high-handed though not illegal” exercise of the Royal Prerogative.[5] The rage of the Tory Peers knew no bounds. And yet what could Mr. Gladstone have done? The Ministry might have resigned, but in that case the Tory Party, as mere advocates of Purchase, could not have commanded a majority of the House of Commons. New Peers might have been created, but to this obsolete and perilous method of coercing the Lords the Queen had a natural and justifiable antipathy. Parliament might have been dissolved, but then the appeal to the country would probably have raised the question whether it was desirable to continue the existence of an unreformed House of Lords side by side with a reformed House of Commons.[6] The only other course was to bow to the decision of the Peers, admitting that they must be permitted to quash a reform, which was passionately desired by the nation, and that they must be allowed to coerce the House of Commons, as in the days when they nominated a majority of its members. To have adopted either of these courses would have been fatal to the authority, perhaps even to the existence, of the Upper House. Thus the excuse of the Royal Prerogative, which removed the subject of contention between the two Houses, was really the means of saving the Lords from a disastrous conflict with the People. The Peers, however, carried a vote of censure on the Government, who ignored it, and then their Lordships passed the Army Regulation Bill without any alteration, nay even without dividing against the clauses transferring the patronage of the Militia from Lords-Lieutenant of Counties to the Crown.
The Session of 1871 was also made memorable by the struggle over the Ballot Bill, in the course of which nearly all the devices of factious obstruction were exhausted. The Ballot had become since 1832 the shibboleth of Radicalism.[7] Resistance to it had been accepted as the first duty of a Conservative. The arguments for the Ballot were (1), that by allowing men to vote in secret they were free from intimidation, and (2), that when votes were given in secret men were not likely to buy them, for they had no longer any means of knowing whether value was ever given for their money. On the other hand, the Tories argued (1), that to vote in secret was cowardly and unmanly; (2), that it was unconstitutional; and (3), that it weakened the sense of responsibility in the voter who had no longer the pressure of public opinion on him.[8] But though these arguments were elaborated at enormous length, they were felt by the average elector to be wiredrawn and academic. To him the practical object of any system of election was to get the voter to give effect to his own real opinion, and not the opinion of somebody else, in choosing a member. There could be nothing constitutional, or moral, or distinctively “English,” in a man who desired to be represented by A voting for B, either because his landlord or his employer or some of his neighbours intimidated or bribed him into doing so. Nor could his sense of duty be strengthened under a system which enabled him to cast the responsibility for a false vote on those who had coerced or bribed him into giving it. No doubt the prospect of getting rid of violent scenes and of the demonstrations of turbulent mobs round the polling-booths where men voted in public, induced many independent politicians, who were not insensible to the weight of some of the Conservative arguments, to accept the Ballot. Strictly speaking, when the question was lifted out of the mire of mere party controversy it came to this—whether Englishmen, in giving their votes, preferred the protection of secrecy, to the protection of a strong law punishing those who attempted to interfere with their independence. To set the law in motion against a rich man in England is a costly, and sometimes a dangerous, process. Hence the majority of Englishmen preferred the protection of secrecy.
Mr. Forster’s Ballot Bill was introduced on the 28th of February, and when the Second Reading had been passed after three nights’ dull debate in June, the Conservatives attempted to talk it out by reviving, on various frivolous pretexts, a discussion on the principle of the Bill in Committee.[9] After these tactics had been exhausted, the Opposition endeavoured to smother the Bill with dilatory amendments. The supporters of the Government, on the other hand, attempted to defeat the factious obstruction of their opponents by remaining silent during the debates. The obstructive party, after a long and tedious fight, were beaten, and the Bill passed through Committee, but shorn of the clauses which cast election expenses on the rates, and made all election expenses not included in the public returns, corrupt expenses.[10] When the Bill reached the House of Lords, the real motive which dictated the apparently futile and stupid obstruction of the Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons, was quickly revealed. The Lords rejected the Bill on the 18th of August, not merely because they disliked and dreaded it, but because it had come to them too late for proper consideration.[11]
