Parliament was opened on the 5th of February, and her Majesty’s Speech was read by the Lord Chancellor. Events, according to the Royal Message, still tended to safeguard the peace of Europe on the basis of the Berlin Treaty, and the Sultan had signed a Convention for the suppression of the Slave Trade. The abdication of the Ameer rendered it impossible to recall the army of occupation. But the Government, in their dealings with Afghanistan, merely desired to strengthen their Indian frontier and preserve the independence of that State. The success of Sir Garnet Wolseley’s policy in South Africa was touched on. It was stated that the Irish authorities had been instructed to make special provisions for coping with distress in Ireland, which would necessitate an Indemnity Bill; and a Criminal Code Bill, a Bankruptcy Bill, a Lunacy Bill, and a Conveyancing Bill were promised. Mr. Cross had, at the end of the previous Session, also promised a Bill to transfer the Metropolitan Water Companies to the ratepayers of London. The debates on the Address were uninteresting. The Tories tried to discredit their opponents by proving that in election contests they angled for the Irish vote by promising to support an inquiry into the demand for Home Rule. The Liberals retorted by proving that though Lord Beaconsfield was ever ready to pass sentence of political excommunication on Home Rulers, he was equally ready to confer honours on Home Rulers,[155] that the Home Rule movement was started by Tories, and that it was a rich Tory who found the money for the Fenian candidature of O’Donovan Rossa in Tipperary.
The Irish Relief Bill was introduced on the 7th, and read a second time on the 23rd of February. It granted loans to the amount of £1,092,985 without interest for two years and a half, but bearing 1 per cent. interest after that time, to landlords and sanitary authorities for works of improvement; it also permitted the Baronial Sessions to start such works, and relaxed the law of out-door relief. Most of the Irish members complained that as a measure of relief, the Bill was inadequate. Some, like Mr. Synan, objected to the loans being taken from the Irish Church surplus. Others wished Boards of Guardians to be able to give out-door relief in money, and to take up loans for improvements. The Bill was passed on the 15th of March, and Major Nolan also passed a Seed Bill which enabled poor farmers to get seeds on loan. It is now clear that the Government had no true conception of the state of Ireland. They had been satisfied with the jaunty assurances of the Chief Secretary, Mr. Lowther, in the previous year, that there was no exceptional agrarian distress in that country. Yet, as a matter of fact, a famine was imminent, and at the beginning of 1880 the Duchess of Marlborough, wife of the Lord-Lieutenant, and Mr. E. Dwyer Gray, Lord Mayor of Dublin, were compelled to start Relief Funds to avert that dreadful calamity.
Even with this evidence before them, the Tory Ministry in 1880 fell into a blunder worthy of the Whigs in 1847-9. They adopted the fatal Whig principle, that the best way to relieve the Irish peasant’s distress was to vote the relief money to be doled out in wages by his landlord, who, by rack-renting and evictions had aggravated that distress, and who, though in most cases an absentee, was yet for some inexplicable reason supposed to be the best almoner the State could find in Ireland.[156] That this mistake was made can only be accounted for by the fact that Lord Beaconsfield’s advanced age, and his absorption in Foreign Affairs, rendered it possible for his less competent colleagues to control his policy.[157]
However, all Englishmen were predisposed to believe that Mr. Gladstone’s Land Act of 1870 had averted famine for ever from Ireland. They did not know that it had broken down because it made no provision against rack-renting, and, therefore, no real provision against unjust eviction. It permitted eviction in cases where a tenant was unable to pay rent; so that, in order to evict, a landlord had merely to put up his rent to the point at which the tenant could not pay it, the tenant’s claim for improvements on eviction being in such a case usually swallowed up in long out-standing arrears. It was quite obvious to those who looked beneath the surface that the coming question was the agrarian difficulty in Ireland. And yet the Ministry treated it as a matter of trivial importance, a blunder which, however, was also committed by the majority of Liberals, who were convinced that Mr. Gladstone’s Land Act had brought content to Ireland.
Still, the Session was quiet and business-like, and the Liberal leaders were studiously polite to Ministers. They helped to pass a Standing Order checking obstruction, hinting that it was not strong enough. By these tactics they artfully neutralised the insinuation that they were fishing for the Home Rule vote.[158] But it was clear that Parliament was moribund and quite “gravelled for lack of matter.” It could not legally survive another year; in fact, since the sixteenth century only four Parliaments had existed as long. Naturally public opinion was pressing for a dissolution, and it merely remained for Ministers to select the “psychological moment” which was most advantageous to themselves for going to the country. Lord Beaconsfield suddenly resolved in spring not to exhaust his mandate, and on the 8th of March Sir Stafford Northcote intimated that the Budget would be brought in before Easter, and that, after taking formal and necessary business, Parliament would be dissolved. Lord Beaconsfield was guided to this step by three considerations. He thought that the glamour of his Asiatic Imperialism still blinded the eyes of the nation to the disasters in Afghanistan and South Africa. He imagined that, because the returns from three bye-elections were favourable to the Tory Party, public opinion was still with him.[159] He trusted that Mr. Cross’s Water Bill would consolidate the popularity of the Ministry, not only in the Capital, but among municipal reformers all over the country. This last forecast was most untoward. When Mr. Cross produced his Water Bill on the 2nd of March, the Standard, which was the organ of the Ministry in the Press, suddenly deserted its Party and its leaders, and assailed Mr. Cross’s scheme with astounding ferocity.[160] The opposition of the Standard at the critical moment not only depressed the spirits of the Tories, but also forced the hand of the “independent” newspapers, who had up till now supported Lord Beaconsfield loyally. They could not be more royalist than the King, so they, too, poured forth their invective on Mr. Cross’s Bill. The effect of this sudden attack of the whole metropolitan Press was to paralyse a vast body of metropolitan opinion that up till then had run in favour of the Ministry. “It came into power on beer,” said a malicious Liberal one afternoon in the Tea-room of the House of Commons, “and it will float out on water.” A more cautious statesman would have postponed dissolution till a happier moment; but Lord Beaconsfield persisted in appealing to the people, and the Government passed an Electoral Bill repealing the law which prohibited candidates from paying for the carriage of voters to the poll. It was obvious that in the coming struggle the Tories were at least resolved to give the rich men on both sides all the advantages of their opulence.
When the Budget was produced Sir Stafford Northcote had a sad tale to tell. His revenue for the past year, instead of yielding £83,055,000, only yielded £80,860,000, showing a deficit of £2,195,000, to which had to be added
AFTER THE MIDLOTHIAN VICTORY: MR. GLADSTONE ADDRESSING THE CROWD FROM THE BALCONY OF LORD ROSEBERY’S HOUSE, GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH. (From the Picture in “The Graphic.”)