LORD TENNYSON.
(From a Photograph by H. H. H. Cameron, Mortimer Street, W.)
On the 7th of June the Home Rule Bill was rejected by a majority of 341 against 311. Mr. Gladstone obtained from the Queen permission to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the country. The Ministerial candidates, at the General Election which followed, relied mainly upon the contention that Home Rule was the only alternative to Coercion, and the Tories and Liberal Unionists, on the other hand, pledged themselves to govern Ireland without Coercion, and still retain the Parliamentary Union unbroken. The Liberal Unionists and the Tories formed an alliance for electoral purposes similar to that which Lord Malmesbury, in 1857, had vainly attempted to cement between the Peelites and the Derbyites. The Irish vote failed to balance the votes of the Liberal Unionists, and when the new House of Commons was elected it was found to consist of 316 Tories, 76 Liberal Unionists, 192 Liberal Home Rulers, and 86 Parnellites. Mr. Gladstone resigned, and Lord Salisbury formed a Ministry, having unsuccessfully endeavoured to persuade Lord Hartington and the Liberal Unionist leaders to join a Coalition Cabinet. The services rendered by Lord Randolph Churchill in rousing the fanaticism of Ulster were rewarded with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the leadership of the House of Commons. Lord Iddesleigh became Foreign Secretary; Mr. Matthews, Q.C., who had carried one of the seats in Birmingham, became Home Secretary; Sir M. Hicks-Beach was deposed from the leadership of the Commons, and relegated to his old post of Chief Secretary for Ireland. As soon as Lord Salisbury assumed office he found that a fresh agrarian crisis was menacing Ireland. The Irish farmers were demanding a revision even of the fixed judicial rents in terms of the recent fall in prices. There seemed no end to the difficulty, and, in a pessimist mood, Lord Salisbury, at the opening of the Session, declared that he was now in favour of getting rid of the dual-ownership of land in Ireland. In fact, he accepted the principle of a great Land-Purchase scheme, but he also broached the theory that, if judicial rents were cut down, the State should recoup the landlords for their losses.
After the debates on the Address were over Mr. Parnell brought in a Relief Bill, allowing tenants who deposited half their rent in Court to claim from the Court a revision of their rents. The Bill was rejected by the combined vote of the Tories and Liberal Unionists. Mr. Dillon now advised the Irish tenants to refuse to pay more rent than they could afford. His suggestion was that they should combine on each estate, offer the landlord a fair rent, and if this was refused, deposit it in the hands of trustees, and use it to resist eviction. This was known as “The Plan of Campaign” against rack-renters, and it was widely adopted all over Ireland. Sir M. Hicks-Beach and Sir Redvers Buller, who had been sent to organise the police in Kerry, apparently discovered that there was much truth in Mr. Parnell’s contention, that the fall in prices had made judicial rents impossible. The Irish Government, at all events, now put pressure on rack-renting landlords, in order to prevent them from demanding full rents and from evicting if they were not paid. But Ministers declined to legislate for Ireland till the following Session, though they appointed Commissions to amass materials for legislation. Parliament was prorogued on the 25th of September.
During the autumn the schism between the Liberal Unionists and the Liberals widened. At Leeds the Liberals pledged themselves anew to adhere to Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule policy. On the 7th of December Lord Hartington’s followers held a Conference in London, at which further arrangements were made for completing their organisation as a distinct Party pledged to maintain the Union. As the year closed various rumours of dissensions in the Cabinet were promulgated. There had been a good deal of agitation against the wasteful extravagance and inefficiency of the spending departments of the State, and Lord Randolph Churchill was called on by public opinion to redeem the pledges in favour of economy which he gave at Blackpool on the 24th of January, 1884. In attempting to do this he found himself thwarted by his colleagues, and, to the astonishment of his Party, he resigned office. He was succeeded by Mr. Goschen, who entered the Cabinet, with Lord Hartington’s sanction, as a Liberal Unionist, thereby illustrating afresh the closeness of the coalition between the Dissentient Liberals and the Tories.
During the year there was some agitation raised as to the sad condition of the unemployed in London. The Tories had taken advantage of this to revive the Protectionist Movement under pretence of advocating Fair Trade at meetings held in Trafalgar Square. On the 8th of February, however, the Socialists followed suit, and organised a demonstration in favour of their panacea for poverty. The police arrangements were somewhat defective. A crowd of roughs and thieves who hovered round the fringe of the mob evaded the constabulary, rushed along Pall Mall and Piccadilly smashing the windows of the clubs and sacking the principal jewellers’ shops. The agitation proceeded, and a counter demonstration to the Lord Mayor’s Show on the 9th of November was even planned. It was, however, prohibited by the police.
As the celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee was now within measurable distance, already there were great manifestations of popular feeling in favour of Imperial Unity. In this year the Imperial Federation League was founded for the purpose of drawing closer the bonds between the Colonies and the Mother Country. The Indian and Colonial Exhibition at South Kensington was organised by the Prince of Wales on a scale of sumptuous splendour which attracted visitors to London from all parts of the globe. It was opened with great pomp and ceremony by the Queen in person on the 4th of May, in the presence of the more prominent members of the Royal Family, the great dignitaries in Church and State, and the representatives of India and the Colonies. This amazing display of the vast resources of the Empire soon degenerated into an evening lounge. But it brought together a vast number of able men from every quarter of the world interested in the problem of Imperial Federation, and the Prince of Wales dexterously seized the opportunity thus created for him to establish a centre and rallying-point for British Imperialism. He started the movement that ended in the foundation of the Imperial Institute. The Queen visited the Exhibition several times, paying special attention to the Indian Court, and conversing graciously with the Indian workmen.
On the 11th of May her Majesty visited Liverpool to open the International Exhibition in that city. On the 13th she visited the Seamen’s Orphanage, and afterwards sailed down the Mersey, contrasting the scene with that on which she gazed when, in 1851, she made a similar excursion with the Prince Consort. Then the Queen was the guest of Lord Sefton; on this occasion she was the guest of the city of Liverpool, the Municipality having fitted up Newsham House for her accommodation. On the 15th she returned to Windsor, the effect of her visit having been to vastly increase her popularity in the North of England. On the 26th of May the Court proceeded to Balmoral. During the absence of the Court in Scotland the Prince and Princess of Wales stimulated the gaiety of the London Season. It was remarkable for the prevalence of Sunday re-unions, the patronage of which by the Heir Apparent soon made them fashionable even among serious Church-going people. On the 30th of June the Queen opened the Royal Holloway College for Women at Egham, an institution for the higher education of women founded by the vendor of the famous ointment and pills. As women had been among the chief buyers both of the ointment and the pills, there was a touch of irony in Mr. Holloway’s bequest that recalled the legacy left by Swift to found a madhouse for the use of the Irish people. On the 2nd of July her Majesty reviewed 10,000 troops at Aldershot, and on the 5th entertained a large number of the Indian and Colonial visitors at Windsor. She attended the brilliant garden-party given by the Prince and Princess of Wales at Marlborough House on the 10th; and on the 20th, accompanied by the Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg, left Windsor for Osborne, where she was soon absorbed in the business attendant on a change of Ministry. On the 17th of August her Majesty left Osborne for Edinburgh, where, on the 18th, she visited the International Exhibition. On the 20th the Queen went to Balmoral, where she remained till the 4th of November. On the 5th she visited the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch at Dalkeith Palace, and inspected the Hospital for Incurables at Edinburgh, returning to Windsor on the 6th. On the 22nd her Majesty received at Windsor, with much ceremony, their Imperial Highnesses the Prince and Princess Komatsu of Japan, and on the 29th the Court removed to Osborne.
