Ministers were in an unenviable position. The increasing bitterness of parties had brought about a disregard of those unwritten laws which had contributed so much in the past to the amenity of public life and to earning for the House of Commons the character of being “the best club in London.” There were bitter dissensions among Ministers themselves, of which Lord Ripon and Mr. Childers gave evidence by leaving the Cabinet. In four years the Conservatives had gained fifteen seats in by-elections, against which Ministerialists could only set two captured from the enemy. Still, the Government could reckon on a majority of ninety in the House of Commons, and no one dreamt of their appealing to the country while all the omens remained adverse. Nevertheless, Mr. Gladstone startled everybody by issuing a manifesto, in January 1874, announcing the dissolution of Parliament. |General Election.| Never did a politician play more completely into his opponent’s hands, though the Conservatives went to the polls full of misgiving about the effect of the new-fangled Ballot. The result proved that their fears were unfounded. The followers of Mr. Disraeli in the new Parliament outnumbered those of Mr. Gladstone by half a hundred.
N. Chevalier.] [From the Royal Collection.
THE PROCESSION ON THE OCCASION OF THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE AT ST. PAUL’S FOR THE RECOVERY OF H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES PASSING LUDGATE CIRCUS, February 1872.
His Royal Highness had been seized with typhoid fever in November 1871, and for several days in the early part of December his life was despaired of. Her Majesty and the other members of the Royal Family were twice summoned to Sandringham, where he was being nursed by the Princess of Wales and Princess Alice of Hesse.
The closing months of Mr. Gladstone’s Administration were marked by a short war on the Gold Coast, arising out of a dispute with Koffee Calcalli, King of Ashanti, who had claimed a tribute formerly paid to him by the Dutch for some territory which they sold to Great Britain in 1872. |The Ashanti War.| Failing to obtain acknowledgment of his claim, the King of Ashanti attacked the Fantis, a tribe under British protection, and it became necessary to chastise him. The difficulty of doing so lay, not in the character of the people of Ashanti, for, though brave and warlike, they could not stand before modern arms of precision, but in the nature of the climate and the difficulty of transport. The campaign had to be limited to the cool season; it was entrusted to Sir Garnet Wolseley, who well sustained the reputation he had earned in the Red River Expedition in 1870. The Expedition left England on September 12, 1873, and returned on March 21, 1874, having in the interval captured and destroyed Coomassie, the capital, brought the King to terms, and laid a perpetual interdict on the hideous human sacrifices which formed one of his most cherished institutions. The Ashanti warriors defended their forest roads gallantly, and the British loss was heavy in proportion to the numbers engaged. The total cost of this Expedition was reckoned at a little short of one million sterling.
Orlando Norrie] [From the Royal Collection.
THE ASHANTI WAR: THE 42ND HIGHLANDERS CROSSING THE OMDALI.
The new Ministry was formed with unexampled celerity. Mr. Gladstone, accepting the verdict of the country, did not attempt to meet the new Parliament, but resigned on February 18, 1874. |Mr. Disraeli’s Third Administration.| Three days later the Queen had approved of the names submitted to her by Mr. Disraeli for all the offices in the Government, both in the Cabinet and outside it. Lord Salisbury, sometimes known then as “the terrible Marquis,” and Lord Carnarvon, both of whom had seceded in 1867 on the question of the franchise, resumed their former seats at the India and Colonial Offices respectively. The Liberal party were languishing in that political anæmia which follows on overwhelming defeat, when they received an additional blow in the retirement of Mr. Gladstone from the leadership. Some hard things were said about one who thus abandoned his party at the lowest ebb of their fortunes, and uncomplimentary contrasts were drawn between him and Disraeli, who had cheered his followers by his constant presence in adversity which seemed irredeemable. After some months of indecision, during which the Liberal leadership was administered by a kind of junta, the Marquis of Hartington assumed the thankless task of leading the deserted and dispirited Opposition, an office made all the more difficult by the occasional raids upon the debates made by Mr. Gladstone as often as some subject which specially interested him turned up, such as the Public Worship Bill, and the Bill abolishing patronage in the Church of Scotland.