THE VILLA CLARA, BAVENO.
Both parties, to do them justice, held out manfully night after night against the pressure of this appeal to the sordid side of their political character. But the longer the game of obstruction on the flogging question was played, the stronger grew the feeling among the populace against flogging, and night after night Mr. Parnell was at his post with cold malice giving an additional turn to the electoral screw. The first to succumb to the torture was Mr. Chamberlain, and something like a faded smile flitted across Mr. Parnell’s stony visage when that successful and practical politician scurried into his camp. Mr. Chamberlain’s unexpected speech against flogging fell like a bombshell in the House of Commons, where it was understood that Englishmen of all parties had entered into an honourable understanding to meet Mr. Parnell’s obstructive policy with a firm and united resistance. It was a speech which, as Sir Robert Peel very justly said, “entirely upset the calculations of the Government,”[145] a fact which was forgotten or concealed by those critics of Lord Beaconsfield’s Administration who afterwards vilipended them for their weak and vacillating attitude to this question. No sooner had Mr. Chamberlain deserted to the Irish ranks than he found himself the object of unsparing obloquy which Liberals and Conservatives impartially bestowed on him. Of course other Radicals, if they desired to save their seats in a General Election, were forced to follow him, and as soon as Mr. Parnell found that he had lured nearly the whole Radical party into his net, he and the Irish Members suddenly vanished from the scene as leaders in the struggle. They were never absent from their posts, and they never failed to support the cause they had espoused by their votes. But they thrust the work of obstruction and of speaking on the Liberal and Radical Members who had tardily become their allies. The advantage they gained was soon apparent. Mr. Chamberlain speedily lost his temper, and not only publicly quarrelled with Lord Hartington, but one evening he even insulted him amidst furious cries of protest from the Liberal benches, by describing him as “the late Leader of the Liberal Party.”[146] Nothing could be more complete than the disintegration of the Liberal Party which Mr. Chamberlain thus produced, unless it were the perplexity of the Ministry. The Tories did not dare to stand by the lash as a British institution unless they got what they had been promised—the loyal support of the Opposition. Yet under Mr. Chamberlain’s obstructive agitation, and under popular pressure from the constituencies, it was clear that the Opposition was going over piecemeal to the opponents of flogging. What wonder, then, that Colonel Stanley, the Minister of War, temporised, when Mr. Chamberlain extorted from him a damaging schedule, giving a list of the offences for which a soldier could be flogged?
Debates instinct with a strange kind of fierce frivolity raged as to the sort of “cat” that should be used in flogging a soldier. Infinite time was wasted in discussing whether the word “lashes” should be used instead of “stripes” in the Act, Mr. Chamberlain being beaten in his effort to get the word “stripes” inserted. Endless discussions arose as to the maximum number of lashes that should be sanctioned. When there was any sign of hesitancy Irish obstructionists were always ready to join in the fray, and not only screw Mr. Chamberlain up to the “sticking point,” but ironically suggest that Liberal and Conservative leaders would alike find it profitable to go to the country in the coming election, with a “new cat and an old Constitution,” as a taking “cry.” Colonel Stanley at last gave way, and offered to reduce the maximum number of lashes from fifty to twenty-five, whereupon Mr. Chamberlain showed that he was as dangerous to run away from as Mr. Parnell. Indeed, all through these debates Mr. Chamberlain fought the battle of obstruction with an amount of courage and fertility of resource that placed him in the front rank of Parliamentary gladiators. Friends and foes alike admitted that but for his asperity of temper he might have disputed the palm of success even with Mr. Parnell himself. The fight was virtually won when Colonel Stanley proposed to reduce the number of lashes from fifty to twenty-five. Even Lord Hartington then made haste to go over to Mr. Chamberlain whilst it was yet time, just as Mr. Chamberlain had made haste to desert to Mr. Parnell.
On the 17th of July Lord Hartington accordingly proposed that corporal punishment should be abolished for all military offences. Though on a division he was beaten by a majority of 106, it was felt that the “cat-o’-nine-tails” was doomed whenever a Liberal Government came into power. It was foreseen that at the next election many Conservative Members would be driven from their seats, because they had been forced to vote in the majority, and the Ministerialists denounced Lord Hartington’s surrender to Mr. Parnell and Mr. Chamberlain with exceeding bitterness. As Lord Salisbury said in addressing a Tory meeting in the City of London, Lord Hartington was like the Sultan, because, though he had a group of political Bashi-Bazouks in his party, whom he could not control, and whose conduct he politely deprecated, yet his motion showed he would not hesitate to profit by their misdeeds, when the conflict of parties was fought out at the polls. As it was, the Government were only able to obtain their majority by agreeing to restrict corporal punishment to those offences which were then punishable by death.
The only other Bill of importance passed during the Session was one dealing with Irish University education. It abolished the Queen’s University, and substituted for it the Royal University of Ireland, an examining body like the University of London, empowered to grant degrees, except in Theology, to all qualified students who might present themselves.
The Budget, as might be expected, was by no means a popular one. Since 1878 extraordinary expenditure, incurred on account of an adventurous Foreign Policy, had simply been treated as a deferred liability. On the 3rd of April Sir Stafford Northcote, in explaining his Budget, admitted that the revenue, which he had estimated at £83,230,000, had fallen short of that sum by £110,000. As for his expenditure, it had exceeded his estimate by £4,388,000. He had therefore no money in hand with which to meet the deferred liabilities of 1878-79; in fact, he was face to face with a fresh deficit. Comparing his actual revenue with his actual expenditure, the deficit was seen to amount to £2,291,000. The position, then, was this. In 1878 he had paid off £2,750,000 by bills, which he thought he would have been able to meet in 1879. Now he found he could not meet them. These he reserved
THE DUCHESS OF CONNAUGHT.