BALLATER.
The year closed with a more serious event in the world of literature, the death (on the 22nd of December) of George Eliot, whose novels were ever a perennial source of pure enjoyment to the Queen. George Eliot was, at her death, the first of living novelists, and the womanhood of England in the Victorian period produced no genius that in culture, strength, tenderness, spiritual insight, and humour, could be compared with hers. The sombre fatalism of the Greek tragedians overshadows her “Mill on the Floss.” The humour of Shakespeare ripples through the taproom scenes in “Silas Marner.” In “Romola,” were it not overweighted with psychological analysis, she would have defeated Scott in the glowing field of historical romance, and did defeat the author of “Esmond” in an arena in which he was supposed to be peerless among his contemporaries. In “Adam Bede,” which has probably been read more widely than any other story of our time by the English-speaking race, she revealed all the grace, sweetness, delicacy of feeling, nobility of intellect, and purity of heart, that formed her fascinating and sympathetic personality.
CHAPTER XXIV.
COERCION.
Lord Beaconsfield Attacks the Government—The Irish Crisis—The Coercion Bills—An All-night Sitting—The Arrest of Mr. Davitt—The Revolt of the Irish Members—The Speaker’s Coup d’État—Urgency—New Rules of Procedure—The Speaker’s Clôture—End of the Struggle against Coercion—Mr. Dillon’s Irish Campaign—Mr. Forster’s First Batch of “Suspects”—The Peers Censure the Ministry—Mr. Gladstone’s “Retort Courteous”—Abolition of the “Cat”—The Budget—Paying off the National Debt—The Irish Land Bill—The Three “F’s”—Resignation of the Duke of Argyll—The Strategic Blunder of the Tories—The Fallacy of Dual Ownership—Conflict between the Lords and Commons—Surrender of the Peers—Passing the Land Bill—Revolt of the Transvaal—The Rout of Majuba Hill—Death of Sir George Colley—The Boers Triumphant—Concession of Autonomy to the Boers—Lord Beaconsfield’s Death—His Career and Character—A “Walking Funeral” at Hughenden—The Queen and Lord Beaconsfield’s Tomb—A Sorrowing Nation—Assassination of the Czar—The Queen and the Duchess of Edinburgh—Character of the Czar Emancipator—Precautions for the Safety of the Queen—Visit of the King and Queen of Sweden to Windsor—Prince Leopold becomes Duke of Albany—Deaths of Dean Stanley and Mr. Carlyle—Review of Scottish Volunteers—Assassination of President Garfield—The Royal Family—The Highlands—Holiday Pastimes—The Parnellites and the Irish Land Act—Arrest of Mr. Parnell—No-Rent Manifesto.
The year 1881 confronted the Government with four difficulties. The Irish Question was growing more serious every day. With a heavy heart England not only saw herself committed to a war of reconquest in the Transvaal, but heard her most sanguine Imperialists admitting that Sir Bartle Frere’s scheme for a South African Confederation had utterly broken down. The Parliament of the Cape Colony would not even seriously discuss it, and Sir Bartle Frere had been recalled at the end of 1880. Victory had crowned British arms in Afghanistan, but Lord Beaconsfield’s policy of holding Candahar, and controlling the rest of the country by British Residents, was obviously impossible. Lord Lytton, who now called it an “experiment,” admitted that the murder of Cavagnari had proved it to be a failure. The claims of Greece to an increase of territory and a better frontier, had been admitted to be just by the Powers, but Turkey still refused to accept any compromise which Europe suggested, and Greece pressed her demands with growing impatience. The nation was therefore relieved to find that Parliament was to meet earlier than usual, and when it assembled on the 6th of January it was soon seen that the Session would be a stormy one. Among the upper and upper middle classes the Government was denounced with a bitterness that had no parallel, for permitting Ireland to fall into “anarchy” under the dominion of the Land League.
In the debate on the Address in the House of Lords, Lord Beaconsfield, appealing to the prevailing sentiment of disappointment, sought to show that all these difficulties were due to Mr. Gladstone’s sudden reversal of the Conservative policy when he came into office. The speech was pitched in a strange, shrewish note of anger, and it failed to produce much effect. Men could not forget that only a few months before Lord Beaconsfield had taunted the Ministry with meekly and slavishly carrying out his policy. It was not easy to forget that Lord Beaconsfield had abandoned the Coercion Act and allowed the Land League to fix its grip on Ireland, that the troubles in Afghanistan were entirely due to his desire to govern that country without being at the expense of occupying it, that the alternative policy adopted by him after the murder of Cavagnari—that of detaching Candahar and putting it under a Wali, who was to be friendly and independent—ended in the fall of the Wali and the desertion of his troops to the enemy which produced the disaster of Maiwand. As for South Africa, even the Times, which had supported Lord Beaconsfield’s policy in that region, now wrote, “what a miserable business our whole connection with the annexation of the Transvaal has been from first to last. The original annexation of the country was a mistake, and it has been the parent of all the rest.” Knowing that Englishmen would never sanction a war for the conquest of a free European people who objected to come under British rule, Lord Beaconsfield’s agents supplied Parliament with no information on the subject, save that which indicated that the Boers would welcome absorption in the British Empire as the surest means of deliverance from native difficulties. The Greek difficulty obviously was an evil inheritance from the Treaty of Berlin by which Lord Beaconsfield conferred on England “Peace with Honour.”
But the domestic crisis in Ireland was far too serious to permit men to indulge in party recriminations, and Lord Beaconsfield showed his sense in urging his followers not to do anything to weaken the Government. Unfortunately, neither he nor Sir Stafford Northcote had much control over the aggressive Tories who were led by the Fourth Party, and the Fourth Party, when the Session opened, cemented more strongly than ever their alliance with the Parnellites for purposes of obstructive opposition. The Tory Party were ably led on two distinct lines of attack. One wing did what it could to goad the Ministry into scourging Ireland with coercive legislation. Another wing gave the Irish members all the help it dared give them publicly in obstructing the domestic legislation, and embarrassing the Foreign Policy of the Ministry. Coercion Bills were announced on the first day of the Session, and the consequence was that it was not till after eleven days’ wearisome wrangling that the debate on the Address ended on the 20th of January. On the 24th, Mr. Forster introduced his Protection of Persons and Property (Ireland) Bill, giving the Lord-Lieutenant power to arrest by warrant persons suspected of treasonable intentions, intimidation, and incitement to violate the laws. If he had this power, said Mr. Forster, he could put under lock and key the “village ruffians” and outrage-mongers who attacked people that were obnoxious to the Land League, and then Ireland would be at peace.
The violence with which the Irish Members obstructed this Bill provoked Mr. Bright to attack them in a speech on the 27th of January, which rendered him and them enemies for life. Mr. Gladstone followed in the same vein, and on Monday, the 31st of January, a scene that became historic was enacted. The debate was prolonged all day and all night, and on through the dull, grey hours of the morning of the 1st of February, and still on all night without ceasing, till the enraged and exhausted House found itself at nine in the morning of the 2nd of February still in session and with no prospect of release. Then the Speaker interfered, saying that it was clear to him the Bill had been wilfully obstructed for forty-one hours. In order to vindicate the honour of the House, whose rules seemed powerless to meet the difficulty, he declared his determination to put the main question without further debate. This was done amidst loud shouts of “Privilege” from the Irish Members, who left the House in a body, and the motion for leave to bring in the Bill, a motion rarely obstructed by any debate, was carried by a vote of 164 to 19. For the first time in the history of Parliament, a debate had been closed by the personal authority of the Speaker.
Mr. Gladstone having announced that the Second Reading of the Bill would be taken that day at noon, the Irish Members returned to the charge. They attempted to challenge the action of the Speaker, and moved the adjournment of the House; but in spite of the support which they received from Lord Randolph Churchill, they were beaten on a division, though they succeeded in wasting the whole of the sitting. Next day (Thursday, the 3rd of February) the Irish Members began the attack by asking if it were true that Mr. Davitt had been arrested. “Yes, sir,” was the answer of Sir William Harcourt. Then, when Mr. Gladstone rose to move the adoption of the new Rule of Procedure, Mr. Dillon rose to a point of order. The Speaker requested him to be seated, but he refused. He was then “named” for wilfully disregarding the authority of the Chair, and, in conformity with the Standing Order, Mr. Gladstone immediately moved his suspension for the rest of the sitting. The motion was carried by a vote of 395 to 33, and, as Mr. Dillon declined to withdraw, he was removed by the Serjeant-at-Arms. After a futile attempt on the part of Mr. Sullivan to dispute the legality of the Speaker’s action, Mr. Gladstone again rose, whereupon The O’Donoghue moved the adjournment of the House. The Speaker ruled that Mr. Gladstone should proceed. Mr. Parnell now moved that Mr. Gladstone be not