MR. W. E. FORSTER.
(From a Photograph by Russell and Sons.)
Ministers were more successful with some other measures. In spite of much Conservative opposition they passed a Bill abolishing religious tests in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and throwing open all academic distinctions and privileges except Divinity Degrees and Clerical Fellowships to students of all creeds and faiths. Mr. Bruce passed a Trades Union Bill, which gave all registered Unions the legal status and legal protection of ordinary corporations.[12] The vague language of the old Act touching intimidation was swept away, and only such forms of coercion as were not only in themselves obviously brutal, but could also be clearly defined, were made punishable. A decision of the law courts, however, deprived the Unions of many of the benefits they had expected to gain under the Act.[13] Mr. Bruce’s Bill, regulating the licensing of public-houses, another large measure, was abandoned, but not till it had converted all the Radical and Liberal publicans and their clientèle into stern and uncompromising Tories. Mr. Goschen’s scheme for reforming Local Government and Taxation was far-reaching and comprehensive, but it alarmed the landlords, for it divided rates between owners and occupiers, and levied rates on game rents.[14]
But by far the most damaging failure of the Session was Mr. Lowe’s Budget. It was known that the large outlay on the Army, due to the abolition of Purchase and other causes, would leave a deficit of about £2,000,000 to be met by Mr. Lowe in the coming year’s accounts. How was he going to meet it? An elastic revenue and rigid economy in expenditure had left Mr. Lowe with a surplus of £396,681. But he had on the next year’s account an estimated deficit of £2,713,000,[15] which he proposed to meet by a tax on matches—“not on matrimonial engagements,” as he remarked,—by a readjustment of the Probate and Succession Duties, and by an increase of about one penny farthing in the £ of income-tax.[16] The Radicals attacked the Budget furiously, and Mr. Disraeli formed with them what Mr. Gladstone termed an “unprincipled coalition.” But the Tories and the Radicals objected to the Budget on entirely different grounds. Mr. White, member for Brighton, quoting Mr. Bright’s declaration that a Government which could not rule the country with £70,000,000 of revenue did not deserve public confidence, complained of the increase in the Army Estimates, and warned the House that if such enormous sums were spent on the protection of property, the people would elect a Parliament pledged to tax property to pay them. Mr. Disraeli, correctly gauging popular feeling, objected to the match tax, the proposal of which enraged the poor match-makers of the East End of London. He gave just expression to the feeling not only of his own Party, but of almost all the rich men on the Liberal benches, when he denounced any increase in the Succession Duties. The Government only escaped defeat by hinting that they would abandon the Match Tax. After some fencing, the whole Budget was reconstructed, the Succession Duties being also given up, and the additional supplies needed by the Government being met by a twopenny income-tax.[17] There could be no better illustration of the strength and weakness of the Gladstone Government than this Budget. Theoretically and logically, it was quite defensible. Purchase in the Army had existed for the convenience and advantage of the wealthy classes. It was, therefore, fair to increase the Succession Duties in order to pay the expense of abolishing it. The Match Tax again satisfied the ideal of public financiers, who all yearned for the discovery of an impost that should fall on an article which, though used by the masses, was yet not food, or one of those “luxuries” like tea, which can with difficulty be distinguished from necessaries. Moreover, as Professor Stanley Jevons proved, the Match Tax would have laid even on the very poor less than one-third of the burden which had been imposed by the shilling duty on corn, that Mr. Lowe had repealed in 1869.[18] Unfortunately, however, Mr. Lowe, in preparing his Budget, ignored the prejudices and foibles of the people. He imagined that if he could defend his proposals logically, they would be accepted with gratitude and unanimity.
In Foreign Affairs, the Government did not improve their position in 1871, and yet they achieved one success, for which they failed to obtain sufficient credit. In May, the Queen was gratified to learn that a basis for settling the outstanding dispute between the United States and Great Britain had been at last discovered. It had been her firm conviction that this quarrel had caused England to lose her traditional influence over the affairs of Europe. The first essential step towards regaining that influence, in her opinion, was taken when it was agreed to submit to a Joint Commission of eminent Englishmen and Americans in Washington the points at issue between the two nations.[19] The American Commissioners, when they met their English colleagues, refused to consider claims for damages due to the Fenian raids in Canada. Not ignoring the Confederate raids from Canada on Vermont, the English Commissioners, on their side, did not press this point. With great courage and frankness, the British Government, through their Commissioners, expressed their sincere regret that Confederate cruisers had escaped from British ports to prey on American commerce. But they did not admit that they were to blame for such an untoward occurrence, nor did they offer what Mr. Sumner had demanded, any apology for recognising the Southern States as belligerents. American claims against England, and English claims against America, “growing out of” the Civil War, it was agreed should be alike referred to a Commission of Arbitration,[20] and the English Commissioners admitting that some just rule for determining international liability in such cases should be laid down, accepted the principle that neutrals are to be held responsible for negligence in allowing warships to be equipped or built in their ports for use against a belligerent. The English Commissioners next agreed to let this principle be applied to the Alabama Claims, and though they were blamed for allowing these claims to be determined by an ex post facto rule, it was difficult for them to adopt any other course. The rule was one that was essential to the protection of British commerce from American privateers in the event of England being engaged in any Continental war. To adopt it as just and right for claims that might accrue in the future, rendered it hardly possible to reject it as unjust and wrong for outstanding claims that had accrued in the past. As to the Fishery dispute, citizens of the United States, it was agreed, were to have for ten years the right to fish on the Canadian coast, and Canadians were to have a similar right of fishing on the coasts of the United States down to the 39th parallel of latitude. As the British Commissioners insisted that the balance of advantage was here conceded to the United States, and that it therefore ought to be paid for by them, that point was by mutual agreement referred to another Commission for adjustment. The chronic controversy as to the San Juan boundary was to be referred to the Emperor of Germany. These arrangements as embodied in the Washington Treaty were subjected to some carping criticism in England. Lord Russell moved, in the House of Lords, that the Queen should be asked to refuse to ratify the instrument, and Lord Salisbury taunted the Government with sacrificing the position of England as a neutral power. But the tone of the debate showed that in their hearts the Conservatives and the old Whigs were thankful that the country had been so honourably extricated from an embarrassing diplomatic conflict, and their attack on the Treaty was like that made by Mr. Sumner and General Butler on the other side of the Atlantic, merely a Party sortie.[21] In a few weeks it was universally admitted that the object which the Government had in view had been attained. As if by magic, the feeling of the United States towards England changed from one of menacing exasperation, to one of growing sympathy and friendliness. For the first time in the course of eighty years the average American stump orator found he could not evoke a round of applause, by hotly-spiced denunciations of England and Englishmen.
BALMORAL CASTLE, FROM THE NORTH-WEST.
(From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen.)