THE QUEEN IN HER STATE ROBES (1887).
(From the Photograph by Walery, Regent Street.)
MR. GLADSTONE.
(From a Photograph by Elliott and Fry.)
bring him in £6,000,000 of fresh revenue. By adding two shillings a gallon to the duty on spirits, and a shilling a barrel to the duty on beer, he expected to obtain £1,650,000. But this still left him with a deficit of £15,000,000 to meet. He took £4,600,000 from the Sinking Fund to meet it—leaving a balance of £3,000,000 to be paid out of the annual revenue. The landed gentry attacked the Budget because it levelled up the succession duties on land till they were equal to those on personal property. The liquor trade attacked the changes in the duties on spirits and beer—so that an excellent opportunity had arisen for the Tory-Parnellite coalition to deal a fatal blow at the Government on another issue than that of continuing Coercion. Mr. Childers finding that only £9,000,000 of the Vote of Credit (£11,000,000) would be needed, offered to halve the increase on the spirit duty, and limit the increased beer duty to a year—but without avail. Sir M. Hicks-Beach moved an amendment which united all the forces of the Opposition and the Parnellites, and defeated the Ministry on the 8th of June, by a vote of 264 to 252. Lord Randolph Churchill’s[210] speech at Bow on the 3rd of June, was taken as a good guarantee that the Irish Party need not fear a Coercion Bill from the Tories if they got into office. “But,” writes Mr. T. P. O’Connor, “even with so strong an assumption the cautious and realistic leader of the Irish Party was not satisfied; and the Irish Members did not go into the Lobby to vote against a Liberal Ministry about to propose coercion until there was an assurance, definite, distinct, unmistakable, that there would be no coercion from their successors.” The scene when the numbers were announced will never be forgotten by those who were present. When it was known that the Government was defeated, the pent-up excitement of the House found vent in a terrific uproar. “Lord Randolph Churchill,” writes Mr. Lucy, “leapt on to the bench, and, waving his hat madly above his head, uproariously cheered. Mr. Healy followed his example, and presently all the Irish members, and nearly all the Conservatives below the gangway, were standing on the benches waving hats and pocket-handkerchiefs and raising a deafening cheer. This was renewed when the figures were read out by Mr. Winn, and again when they were proclaimed from the Chair. From the Irish camp rose cries of ‘Buckshot! Buckshot!’ and ‘Coercion!’ These had no relevancy to the Budget Scheme; but they showed that the Irish members had not forgotten Mr. Forster, and that this was their hour of victory rather than the triumph of the Tories. Lord Randolph Churchill threatened to go mad with joy. He wrung the hand of the impassive Rowland Winn, who regarded him with a kindly curious smile, as if he were some wild animal. Mr. Gladstone had resumed his letter,[211] and went on calmly writing whilst the clerk at the table proceeded to run through the Orders of the Day as if nothing particular had happened. But the House was in no mood for business. Cries for the adjournment filled the House, and Mr. Gladstone, still holding his letter in one hand and the pen in the other, moved the adjournment, and the crowd surged through the doorway, the Conservatives still tumultuously cheering.”[212]
On the following day (9th of June) Mr. Gladstone told the House that the defeat of the previous evening had caused the Cabinet to submit “a dutiful communication” to the Queen, then at Balmoral, but as an answer to it must take some time to reach London, he moved an adjournment till Friday (12th of June). Strangely enough, the resignation of the Ministry was unattended by any popular excitement. It was perfectly well known that the new Cabinet would be merely a stopgap Government, powerless to do anything except wind up the business of Parliament before the General Election. On the 12th of June the House was in quite a cheerful humour when it met to hear from Mr. Gladstone that the Queen had accepted the resignation of his Cabinet. It was curious that even this last act of his Ministerial life in the Parliament of 1880-85 was not free from blunder. “Her Majesty’s gracious reply,” said Mr. Gladstone, “was made upon the 11th accepting the resignation of Lord Salisbury” a slip of the tongue which the Premier had to correct amidst shouts of laughter. At first the Queen was unwilling to accept the resignation of the Government. She could not admit that Ministers were free to throw the State into confusion because of a defeat on an Amendment to a Budget. In fact, it is not quite Constitutional to coerce the free judgment of the Commons on the financial proposals of Government by threatening Ministerial resignation if these are not slavishly accepted in detail. Such a practice virtually ties the hands of the House of Commons as guardians of the public purse. The Queen, therefore, sought a personal interview with Mr. Gladstone, to hear his full justification for the course he had adopted, but on his instructing Lord Hartington to proceed to Balmoral, her Majesty’s request was withdrawn. It now became apparent to her that the crisis was too serious to be dealt with from Balmoral. In the last weeks of the Session Parliamentary time was so valuable that it could not prudently be wasted over a stagnant interregnum protracted by the journeyings to and fro of Royal couriers between Aberdeenshire and London. It was accordingly announced that the Queen would return to Windsor at once—following the course she adopted in 1866, when confronted with a similar inconvenience. Her Majesty arrived at Windsor on the 17th of June, when Lord Salisbury had an interview with her. On the following day he and Mr. Gladstone both waited on the Sovereign—Mr. Gladstone delivering up the seals of office. There was, however, a difficulty to be overcome in the transfer of power which had been created by a tactical blunder of Lord Salisbury’s. He had told the Queen that if he took office he must exact from Mr. Gladstone a pledge that the Opposition would not embarrass her new Ministry by attacks, but loyally co-operate with it in the conduct of its business. Mr. Gladstone refused to waive his right of criticism, and he pointed out that he could not, even if he tried, arbitrarily dispose of the will of his supporters. All he could promise was that he would endeavour to give the new Cabinet “fair play,” and deal with it on its merits. But Lord Salisbury was not at first satisfied with this arrangement, and the country was soon startled by hearing that he had revived the crisis, and that even at the eleventh hour he would withdraw his consent to serve as Premier. The Queen here intervened and persuaded him to abandon his pragmatic objections to Mr. Gladstone’s assurances.[213]
The Ministry was formed after some fierce struggles in the Tory Party. Lord Randolph Churchill and his group not only insisted on having high offices, but they demanded the expulsion of Sir Stafford Northcote from the leadership of the House of Commons. Sir M. Hicks-Beach deserted his old chief, and not only went over to his enemies, but even offered himself as a candidate for his vacant post. The result was that Lord Salisbury became Premier and Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Sir Stafford Northcote became Earl of Iddesleigh, and was appointed First Lord of the Treasury. Sir Hardinge Giffard was made Lord Chancellor; Lord Cranbrook, President of the Council; Lord Harrowby, Lord Privy Seal; Sir Richard Cross, Home Secretary; the Duke of Richmond, President of the Board of Trade; Colonel Stanley, Colonial Secretary; Lord Randolph Churchill, Secretary of State for India; Mr. W. H. Smith, Secretary of State for War; Sir M. Hicks-Beach, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons; Lord Carnarvon, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Lord John Manners, Postmaster-General; Lord George Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty; Mr. E. Stanhope, Vice-President of the Council of Education; Mr. A. J. Balfour, President of the Local Government Board; Sir W. Hart Dyke, Chief Secretary for Ireland; Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, a Civil Lord of the Admiralty; Mr. Webster and Mr. J. E. Gorst, Attorney-and Solicitor-General. Sir H. D. Wolff was sent on a special mission for no very well-defined purpose to Egypt, so that every member of the Fourth Party, who had organised the obstructive alliance between the Parnellites and the Tories, was handsomely rewarded with remunerative places. Sir H. D. Wolff’s appointment was severely criticised at the time, partly because of his intimate connection with the Anglo-Egyptian Bank. The only other striking incident in the crisis was that Mr. Gladstone was offered an earldom by the Queen—an honour which, however, he declined.[214]