With regard to the “Ilbert Bill” which is now being so vehemently discussed, The Queen cannot but deplore the acrimony with which the question has been treated; but as it is a matter under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, The Queen is unwilling to express any opinion upon the measure at present.
It gave The Queen sincere pleasure to confer the decoration of the Royal Red Cross upon you, who have worked so hard and who have effected so much in the Sanitary Departments of the Army, and The Queen is very grateful for your observations on the Military Medical questions, and has read with much interest the paper in the Fortnightly Review[207] to which you called her attention. Her Majesty considers your remarks of the highest[341] value, and fully concurs in your opinion that the Hospital Services should be carried out in a manner calculated to relieve the Medical officer from the care of details not belonging to his Medical work. The abolition of the Purveyor's Department and the change from the Regimental to the General system—which The Queen much regrets—were both effected on the recommendation of the Medical officers, and The Queen observes that those who gave evidence before the late Committee of Enquiry consider these steps to have improved the efficiency of their Department. These matters have been prominently brought to Her Majesty's notice lately, as the selection of a new Commandant to Netley Hospital is now under consideration, and the comparative advantages of naming a Combatant or Medical officer are being discussed.
The Queen was extremely sorry to have missed the opportunity of seeing you at Windsor, but trusts that on some future occasion she may be more fortunate. I am to repeat to you Her Majesty's thanks for your letters, and to assure you that The Queen will always be glad to receive any communications from you.
The practical interest which Queen Victoria took in Army matters may have been a factor in the prompt attempt to remedy the evils to which Miss Nightingale had called attention. In the following year Miss Nightingale obtained, through Lord Wantage, a statement from the War Office (Oct. 17, 1884) “showing how far the recommendations of Lord Morley's Committee had been carried out.” There were very few of the evils left unremedied—at any rate on paper.
There was one feature of the Hospital Service upon which the inquiries above mentioned threw nothing but praise, and that was the female nursing. Lord Wolseley, whose service dated back, like Miss Nightingale's, to the Crimean War, was particularly emphatic on this point. “I have always thought,” he said, “that the presence of lady nurses in our military hospitals was a matter of the first consequence. When, as a General, I have inspected hospitals, I always felt I could not really ‘get at’ the patients; few men would dare to speak against the orderlies of a hospital, no matter how you may question them, but they would tell what they think very freely to a lady nurse who is attendant upon them. Apart from the incalculable boon which the care and kindness of such ladies confers upon the sick or wounded soldier, I regard their presence in all our hospitals as a most wholesome check upon the whole personnel in them. I am sure that the patients in a ward where there was a lady nurse would always receive the wine, food, etc., ordered them by the doctor, and the irregularities of the orderlies, such as those complained of by Mrs. Hawthorn, could not take place. I am therefore of opinion that it was very wrong to have prevented that lady from entering the wards at Pietermaritzburg, and I think it would be desirable to call attention in the Queen's Regulations to the great advantage of procuring the aid of lady nurses at all stations, both in peace and war.”[208] All this is precisely the doctrine preached by Miss Nightingale when she said that the most important function of the female nurse was the education of the male orderly. Lord Wolseley, in the Memorandum just quoted, was speaking from personal experience in South Africa. Subsequent experience in Egypt confirmed his opinions, and in his evidence before the later Committee of Inquiry he was even more emphatic. “The employment of lady nurses to a very large extent in every hospital on service” was the surest way to efficiency. The female nurses at Cairo, Ismailia, and Alexandria were of the “greatest assistance.” “It was delightful to go into a ward where there was a female nurse. Their presence made the greatest difference.” “If I might so describe them, although it is not perhaps a complimentary way of describing them, they are the best spies in the hospital upon everybody.”[209]
VII
The nurses were soon to have another opportunity of proving their usefulness; but we must first return, with Miss Nightingale, to Lord Ripon's Indian reforms, the fate of which was in the middle of 1883 still uncertain. “Which way,” she wrote to friends likely to know, “do you think the storm is going?” She had urged the Viceroy “not to yield to the storm which raged round him,” and he had assured her that he had no inclination whatever to do so, though he would not be unwilling to admit reasonable amendments to his proposals. The Viceroy's letters showed Miss Nightingale that his policy would need all the support that those in England who agreed with it could give. The storm-centre was the Ilbert Bill, and Lord Ripon's letter had prepared Miss Nightingale for coming events. “Reasonable amendments” were ultimately accepted, and the “Ilbert Bill” was passed (Jan. 1884). The compromise was that Europeans tried before native judges should have the right of claiming a jury. “The so-called compromise is, in fact, a surrender,” wrote one of Miss Nightingale's Radical friends; but for her part she held that the Viceroy had wisely yielded somewhat on a less important point, in order to improve the prospects of his more important measures. With these, from time to time, Lord Ripon reported satisfactory progress. After some difficulties with the India Office, he was allowed to establish an Agricultural Department in Bengal. The prospects of the Land Tenure Bills were favourable.[210] The local self-government Bills were passed. Educational reforms had been made. Then, presently, it was announced in London that Lord Ripon had resigned and would shortly return to England. Miss Nightingale was much perturbed, and accused her friend of “deserting the Empire.” Lord Ripon in reply sent her a long letter of explanation, the gist of which was that he had exhausted his powers of usefulness in India, and that, by retiring now instead of serving his full term, he would be more likely to obtain a sympathetic successor. The successor was soon appointed, and early in November Lord Dufferin came to see Miss Nightingale. “My visit from Lord Dufferin,” she wrote to Dr. Sutherland (Nov. 6), “took place yesterday. We went over many things—Sanitation, Land Tenure, Agriculture, Civil Service, etc. etc. And I am to send him a Note of each. But about sanitary things he says he is perfectly ignorant, especially of Indian sanitary things. But he says, ‘Give me your instructions and I will obey them. I will study them on my way out. Send me what you think. Supply the powder and I will fire the shot.’ Give me quickly what instructions you think I should send him.” This letter reached Dr. Sutherland on a Friday, and she had commanded him to send in his notes “before Monday.” But, as ill luck had it, the Doctor was busy “in working at the cholera bacillus with a beautiful Vienna microscope purchased with this object.” That would occupy him on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday was Sunday; so “the Viceroy must wait.” The reader who remembers an earlier chapter will be able to imagine Miss Nightingale's wrath. Notes and telegrams, now withering, now pleading, followed fast upon each other. “I did not know the bacillus was of more consequence than a Viceroy.” “If you did a little on Sunday, the Recording Angel would drop not a tear but a smile.” But Dr. Sutherland was not to be cajoled into abandoning either his science or his Sabbatarianism; and on the former point he put in a very good plea in mitigation of judgment. If Dr. Koch's cholera bacillus turned out well, the discovery would save many more lives than Lord Dufferin, however carefully instructed, was likely to do. Miss Nightingale did not believe in the bacillus but allowed herself to be appeased, especially as it turned out that Lord Dufferin was not leaving London till a day or two later than she had supposed. So, she and Dr. Sutherland collaborated in indoctrinating their fifth Viceroy in the truths of their Sanitary gospel. There is a formidable list in her hand of “Papers for Lord Dufferin.” As he was as good as his word, he must have had a strenuous voyage. On starting he sent to her one of his pretty little letters:—
(Lord Dufferin to Miss Nightingale.) S.S. “Tasmania,” Nov. 13 [1884]. My dear Miss Nightingale—I duly received the papers you were good enough to send me, and you may be quite sure of my studying them with the attention they deserve. I well know how well entitled you are to speak with authority in reference to Indian questions, and I can well believe that you have thought out many conclusions which it would be of the greatest benefit to me to ponder over. I hope you will[345] forgive me for adding that one of the pleasantest “sweets of office” I have yet tasted has been the privilege I acquired of coming to pay you that little visit.
Meanwhile, Miss Nightingale, in the hope of completing the new Viceroy's education, had written an account of her interview to Lord Ripon, so that when they met he might know on what points his successor most needed indoctrinating. Lord Dufferin had not long been gone when an opportunity offered itself for another effort at evangelization. At the end of November Mr. Gladstone called upon Miss Nightingale. He had come without an appointment, and she was unable to see him; but assuming, for her purpose, that he had proposed to discuss Indian questions, she sent him a written statement of her views on various matters, and asked leave to write again with more special reference to Lord Ripon's splendid record. Mr. Gladstone thanked her (Dec. 6) for the valuable letter; said that the best use he could make of it would be to commend it to the attention of Lord Kimberley[211]; and added that he would be very glad to hear her views about Lord Ripon's administration. She had wanted to interest Mr. Gladstone, and was disappointed that he had only passed her letter on to Lord Kimberley, who, she thought, meant the India Council, a body not sympathetic to the Ripon policy. But, as she had been given the opening, she made another attempt. Mr. Gladstone was, of course, in general sympathy with Lord Ripon, but she wanted the Prime Minister to give greater prominence and emphasis to Indian internal reforms in his speeches. She did not succeed. “I wish I could hope,” wrote a friend who knew both India and Mr. Gladstone well (Jan. 4, 1885), “that you could make some real impression on him; but at his age and at this time, when his hands are so full, what can you expect? He has never given his mind to India, and it is too late now.” It was not only Mr. Gladstone who was preoccupied at this time with other things than the welfare of the Indian peoples. Miss Nightingale soon discovered this. Lord Ripon was nearly due in England. He ought, she said, to receive a popular welcome as enthusiastic as any accorded to a conquering General. As there were no signs of any preparation in that sort, she worked very hard, though with very little success, to organize a welcome in the form of laudatory articles in various newspapers and reviews.[212] She herself wrote an enthusiastic appreciation, but she was unwilling to sign it. The editors were willing to publish anything to which Miss Florence Nightingale would give her name, but for articles in praise of Lord Ripon's policy without that attraction there was no demand. As soon as it was disclosed that what was offered was only an unsigned article, or an article signed by some nominee of hers, the editors, with one consent, discovered that exigencies of space prevented its insertion. And this was not surprising; for Khartoum had fallen, and the Government was tottering. Miss Nightingale was as keenly interested as any one else in those things; but there were few beside herself to whom the standing problems of Indian administration were matters of “life and death,” no less passionately interesting than the fate of a hero or the fall of a ministry.