there glowed the fire and fervour of the prophet; and when a voice which, like Mr. Besant’s, had the ear of a hundred millions of English-speaking people, preached in the most fascinating of parables the doctrine that Wealth owes, and ever will owe, an undischarged duty to Poverty—a mighty impetus was given to the cause of social reform. Hands swift to do good were stretched forth from the West End to the East End, and a movement destined to realise, in the Jubilee Year of the Victorian era, some of Mr. Besant’s ideals in “All Sorts and Conditions of Men,” was now initiated. Unfortunately it was vulgarised by much imposture at the outset. The pace of three London seasons had been unusually rapid, and Society at this juncture had exhausted its resources of amusement and its capacities for pleasure. The town was fuller than usual, for Cabinet Councils had been unwontedly early; and the great families who flock to London when they get the first hint that the autumnal period of political intrigue has set in, had abandoned their country houses sooner in the year than was customary. The theatres were unattractive. The Fisheries Exhibition had closed; and the world of fashion was hungry for some fresh object of interest. Like Matthew Arnold’s patrician, though Society made its feast and crowned its brows with roses in the winter of 1883-4, it was still left lamenting that
“No easier and no quicker passed
The impracticable hours.”
The movement in philanthropy which Mr. Besant’s writings originated, and which Lord Salisbury’s essay on the Housing of the Poor stamped with the imprimatur of British respectability, was just what was needed to supply a stimulus to which the blunted nerves of the idlest pleasure-seeker would respond. In the days of Lord Tom Noddy and Sir Carnaby Jenks persons of quality in similar circumstances would have gone to see a man hanged. Some years later, as M. Henri Taine notes, they would have applied for an escort of police and inspected the thieves’ kitchens and other hideous lairs of crime. Now, under escorts of enchanted philanthropists, lay and clerical, male and female, curious parties were organised in the West End to visit the slums, just as they were arranged to visit the opera. These amateur explorers were, indeed, dubbed “slummers” by cynical writers in the Press; and the verb to “slum” almost made good its footing in the English vocabulary. Few of these strange visitors remained behind in the East End to help in the work of charity whose objects excited their morbid curiosity. It was also an untoward coincidence that of these few some of the most fussy and bustling subsequently figured conspicuously in the Divorce Court.
It had been the intention of the Government to reduce the number of the troops in Egypt, and some hint of this had been given by Mr. Gladstone at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in the Guildhall. But before the plan could be carried out a catastrophe happened in Egypt which interfered with it. It had always been the ambition of the Khedivial family to extend their dominion to the Equator. They had drained Egypt of men and money to conquer that vast and difficult region known as the Soudan, and under the pretext of suppressing the slave trade, they had endeavoured to sanctify their policy of costly conquest. When, however, disturbances broke out in Lower Egypt, the wild tribes of the Soudan, ever ready to revolt against the Egyptians or “Turks,” whom they regarded as brutal extortioners, joined the standards of a pretended prophet, called the Mahdi, and Colonel Hicks, a retired Indian officer, was sent with an Egyptian army to suppress the rising. The British Government sanctioned, but gave no aid to the expedition. By their foolish policy they made themselves morally responsible for its fate without taking steps to make its success a certainty. In November Hicks Pasha and his army were cut to pieces at El Obeid, and Egyptian authority in the Soudan was represented by a few beleaguered garrisons at such places as Khartoum, Suakim, and Sinkat. The British Government dissuaded Tewfik Pasha from trying to re-conquer the Soudan, but advised him merely to relieve the garrisons and hold the Red Sea coast and the Nile Valley as far as Wady Halfa. By thus blocking the only outlets for its produce the insurrection in the province might be strangled. Here the Ministry delivered themselves into the hands of their enemies. If they tried to re-conquer the Soudan the Tories could denounce a blood-guilty policy that wasted the substance of Egypt to gratify Khedivial ambition. If they induced Tewfik Pasha to let the Soudan alone, they could be denounced for abandoning one of the conquests of civilisation to barbarism and the slave trade. But in the first weeks of 1884 there was a lull in political agitation, which was only partially broken by Mr. Gladstone’s address to his tenants at the Hawarden Rent Dinner on the 9th of January. It was in this speech that he advised farmers groaning under prolonged agricultural distress, aggravated by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, to seek consolation in pensive reflection on the Hares and Rabbits Act, and in an energetic application of their industry to the production of jam.
CHAPTER XXVII.
GENERAL GORDON’S MISSION.
Success of the Mahdi—Difficult Position of the Ministers—Their Egyptian Policy—General Gordon sent out to the Soudan—Baker Pasha’s Forces Defeated—Sir S. Northcote’s Vote of Censure—The Errors on Both Sides—Why not a Protectorate?—Gordon in Khartoum—Zebehr, “King of the Slave-traders”—Attacks on Gordon—Osman Digna Twice Defeated—Treason in Khartoum—Gordon’s Vain Appeals—Financial Position of Egypt—Abortive Conference of the Powers—Vote of Credit—The New Speaker—Mr. Bradlaugh Redivivus—Mr. Childers’ Budget—The Coinage Bill—The Reform Bill—Household Franchise for the Counties—Carried in the Commons—Thrown Out in the Lords—Agitation in the Country—The Autumn Session—“No Surrender”—Compromise—The Franchise Bill Passed—The Nile Expedition—Murder of Colonel Stewart and Mr. Frank Power—Lord Northbrook’s Mission—Ismail Pasha’s Claims—The “Scramble for Africa”—Coolness with Germany—The Angra Pequena Dispute—Bismarck’s Irritation—Queensland and New Guinea—Death of Lord Hertford—The Queen’s New Book—Death of the Duke of Albany—Character and Career of the Prince—The Claremont Estate—The Queen at Darmstadt—Marriage of the Princess Victoria of Hesse—A Gloomy Season—The Health Exhibition—The Queen and the Parliamentary Deadlock—The Abyssinian Envoys at Osborne—Prince George of Wales made K.G.—The Court at Balmoral—Mr. Gladstone’s Visit to the Queen.
Parliament met on the 5th of February, 1884. The Queen’s Speech admitted that the unexpected success of the Mahdi in the Soudan had delayed the evacuation of Cairo and the reduction of the British army of occupation. It also referred to the steps that had been taken to relieve Khartoum by the despatch of General Gordon—accompanied by Colonel Stewart—to that doomed city. An imposing programme of domestic legislation was put forward. There was to be a Reform Bill, a Bill to improve the government of London, and legislation was promised dealing with shipping, railways, the government of Scotland, education, Sunday Closing in Ireland, and intermediate education in Wales. The Egyptian Policy of the Government was naturally taken as the point for attack by the Opposition in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons. The position of England in Egypt was now so peculiar and embarrassing that any policy open to the Government was open to objection. So far as the interests of the English and Egyptian people were concerned, the best thing that could have been done for them would have been to render the frontier at Wady Halfa impregnable, to forbid any further interference with the Soudan, and to leave the Egyptian garrisons and colonies there to make the best terms they could with the Mahdi. This would not have been a noble or heroic, but it would have been a sensible course, and it would have prevented the perfectly useless expenditure of precious blood and treasure. On the other hand, only a Minister unselfish enough to brave the obloquy which would be cast on him by his rivals for adopting a sordid policy in the interests of his country, could venture on such a policy. It would have been possible to a Bismarck, who can boast that he will never break the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier for the sake of the Eastern Question. It was not possible to Mr. Gladstone, some of whose colleagues were already in a bellicose mood. Assuredly, too, it would in 1884 have been unpopular with the electors. In foreign complications, involving the issues of peace or war, their
“Affections are
A sick man’s appetite, who desires most that
Which would increase his evil.”
Ministers therefore chose the course which, on the whole, divided the country least. They decided to cut the connection between Egypt and the Soudan, but at the same time to arrange for the safe return of the Egyptian garrisons and colonists to Lower Egypt. They selected General Gordon—better known as “Chinese” Gordon—who, as Gordon Pasha, had been Viceroy of the Soudan, to make the best arrangements he could for the future of the country, and bring back the garrisons and colonists in safety. Gordon’s great name and unbounded popularity caused this plan to be hailed with unalloyed delight by the people. He arrived at Cairo on the 23rd of January, and was permitted to receive from the Khedive a firman appointing him Governor-General of the Soudan, and vesting him, as the Khedive’s Viceroy, with absolute power. Gordon thus held two commissions—one from the English Government as the Agent of the Foreign Office, another from the Khedive as Viceroy of the Soudan. He crossed the desert without an escort, and was making his way to Khartoum when Parliament met. It was a dramatic coincidence that when the debate on Egypt was going on, news of a serious disaster from the Soudan came to hand. Baker Pasha had advanced from Trinkitat on the 4th of February, and near Tokar his force was attacked by the Mahdi’s followers and driven back to Suakim. By an accident the discussion collapsed without any Ministerial reply being given to the Tory attack. Then Sir Stafford Northcote, on the 7th of February, moved his vote