GENERAL GORDON.
(From a Photograph by Adams and Scanlan, Southampton.)
of censure, on the ground that the disasters in the Soudan were due to “the vacillating and inconsistent policy” pursued by the Government. Possibly the disaster of the division in the Commons when this motion was rejected may have in turn been traceable to the “vacillating and inconsistent” tactics of the Opposition. They toiled with wearisome iteration to prove that England, having incurred responsibility for the government of Egypt after Tel-el-Kebir, was responsible for the massacre of Hicks Pasha and his army. So she was; but instead of drawing the logical inference from the facts, namely, that the English authorities in Egypt were to blame for not vetoing Hicks’s expedition, Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Salisbury blamed the English Government for not helping him with “advice,” and for not forcing the Khedive to make his army strong enough for its task. Here it became manifest to the House of Commons that the Opposition had only got up a sham faction fight. For when Sir Stafford Northcote hotly repudiated the notion that he would have sent a British army to reinforce Hicks or avenge his death, he gave up his whole case. It was then seen that the alternative policy of the Opposition was to have goaded the Egyptian Government to a war of re-conquest in the Soudan, and in the event of failure to leave it in the lurch. Alike in the Commons and in the Lords the responsible leaders of the Opposition admitted that Mr. Gladstone was right in advising Egypt to abandon the Soudan, and in refusing to send British troops there to conduct the evacuation. What they argued was that he was wrong in not telling the Khedive’s Cabinet how to get out of the Soudan, though he would in that event, according to them, have been quite right to refuse the Khedive aid, if, in acting on Mr. Gladstone’s suggestions, his Highness met with disaster in the rebellious province. It was a sad surprise to Lord Salisbury to find his censure carried in the Upper House only by a vote of 181 to 81—for the majority did not represent half of a Chamber two-thirds of which were his followers. It was, however, no surprise to Sir Stafford Northcote to find his motion rejected in the House of Commons, though he had the advantage of the Irish vote. As for the country, its verdict was that there was no difference between the two parties except on one point. The Tories would have pestered the Khedive with instructions, but would have repudiated responsibility for them if when acted on they had ended in failure. The Government had, through fear of incurring this responsibility, left the Khedive too much to his own devices, and when these brought trouble they found they could not get rid of all responsibility for it.
What ought to have been said was what neither Lord Salisbury nor Sir Stafford Northcote dared say. It was that England, after Tel-el-Kebir, should have boldly proclaimed a Protectorate over Egypt, the moral authority of which would have sufficed to hold her fretful and mutinous provinces in awe, till steps for their reconstruction could be taken.[190] Failure seemingly rendered the Opposition reckless. Even the heroic and high-hearted envoy of the Government at Khartoum did not escape the shafts of their malice. He had proclaimed the Mahdi as Sultan of Kordofan in order to induce him to negotiate for the peaceful withdrawal of the garrisons. He had burned in public the archives of the Egyptian Government, in which the arrears of taxes were recorded, as a pledge that the oppressed people of Khartoum should be no longer the prey of corrupt extortioners. He had set free the prisoners who were unjustly pining in the gaols. He had proclaimed that the right of property in domestic slaves would be recognised—thereby neutralising the intrigues of the Mahdists, who were persuading the wavering people that if they remained true to Egypt, the Government would rob them of their household servants. Finding it impossible to discover a less objectionable native chief fit to undertake the task of keeping order at Khartoum, Gordon recommended for that purpose his old enemy, Zebehr Pasha, once known as “King of the Slave-Traders.”
The Tories now attacked Gordon and his policy with much bitterness. They jeered at him as a madman. They denounced him for sanctioning slavery—he who had given the best days of his life to the suppression of the trade. They tried to rouse public opinion against the Government for tolerating his proceedings. In fact, no effort was wanting to embarrass him and the Ministry in solving the difficult problem of extricating the military and civil population of Khartoum from their dangerous position. The factiousness of the Opposition had one bad result. It frightened the Government into refusing their sanction to Gordon’s proposal for handing over Khartoum to Zebehr Pasha. For at this time the Tories delighted to describe Zebehr as the kind of monster of savagery, with whom a statesman of Mr. Gladstone’s character naturally sought a close alliance.
When the tidings of General Baker’s defeat at Teb were followed by news of the massacre of the garrison of Sinkat, Ministers, in obedience to public opinion, decided to abandon their policy of inaction in the Soudan. On the 10th of February, Admiral Hewett took supreme command at Suakim. On the 18th a small British force under General Graham landed at that place. By this time Tokar had fallen, but Graham, advancing from Trinkitat, fought and beat the Arabs under Osman Digna at El Teb. Osman retired to Tamanieb, and was attacked there by Graham on the 13th of March. At first the British force wavered and broke under the impetuous shock of the Arab charge, but in the end the Arabs were defeated, and Osman Digna’s camp was destroyed. Gordon had made an unsuccessful sortie from Khartoum on the 16th of March, and he had found not only his army but the civil population of the city honeycombed with treason. In vain he implored the Government to send two squadrons of cavalry to Berber to aid the escape of two thousand fugitives whom he proposed to send down the Nile. The Government, on the contrary, recalled General Graham and his troops from Suakim, thereby leading the Arabs to believe that Gordon was abandoned by his countrymen. His negotiations with the Mahdi proved to be a failure. In May his protests against the desertion of Khartoum were published in official form, and the Opposition then gave expression to popular opinion when they moved, though they did not carry, another vote of censure on the Ministry. The defence of the Government was that Gordon was in no danger, and that when he was, Ministers would quickly send him aid. The financial position of Egypt was now so bad that Mr. Gladstone resolved to ease the pressure of her debt at the expense of the bondholders. For this purpose it was necessary to summon a Conference of the Powers. France opposed the English project, and the diplomatic negotiations between England and France were seriously embarrassed by incessant interpellations from the Opposition in Parliament, and by their abortive votes of censure. In spite of these difficulties, however, Ministers were able, on the 23rd of June, to announce that they had come to an arrangement with France. She formally abandoned the Dual Control, which had really been destroyed by the Khedive’s decree in 1882, and bound herself not to send troops to Egypt unless on the invitation of England. England, on the other hand, agreed to evacuate Egypt on the 1st of January, 1888, unless the Powers considered that order could not be kept after the British troops were recalled. The question of the debt was virtually left to the Conference, but it was agreed that after the 1st of January, 1888, Egypt was to be neutralised and the Suez Canal put under international management. Even these arrangements were, however, to depend on the decisions of the Conference, which, Mr. Gladstone said, would in turn need Parliamentary sanction before they could be considered binding on the British Government. The Conference broke up owing to the impossibility of reconciling English and French interests, and Mr. Gladstone on the 2nd of August told the House of Commons that England had regained entire freedom of action. With this freedom the Government acquired fresh energy. They sent Lord Northbrook to Egypt to report upon its condition, and obtained from Parliament a Vote of Credit of £300,000 with which to send succour to Gordon if he required it. At this time, though Khartoum was isolated and surrounded by the Mahdi’s troops, Lord Hartington refused to admit that Egypt was in danger from an Arab invasion, or to give any definite promise to send Gordon aid.
The Egyptian Question sadly exhausted the energies of the House of Commons. Mr. Arthur Peel had been chosen as Speaker on the 26th of February, in succession to Sir Henry Brand, who was elevated to the Peerage as Viscount Hampden. Sir Stafford Northcote again succeeded in preventing Mr. Bradlaugh from taking his seat, and when Mr. Bradlaugh resigned it, and was again re-elected for Northampton, the resolution excluding him from the House was once more revived on the 21st of February.
The Budget was not presented till the last week of April, and Mr. Childers