The BRITANNIA TUBULAR BRIDGE ACROSS THE MENAI STRAITS.
Designed by Robert Stephenson and Sir William Fairbairn, and opened in 1850. It is 1,571 feet in length, and 100 feet above the water. The widest spans are each 470 feet.
Lord Salisbury’s Government fell on January 25: Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister, and in his Cabinet were included some of his colleagues who had pronounced most emphatically and most recently against Home Rule, although the Lords Hartington, Derby, and Selborne stood significantly aloof. The mine was laid: the only indication of the coming explosion was the resignation, on March 26, by Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan of their seats in the Cabinet. The train was fired on April 8, when Mr. Gladstone introduced his Bill for the better government of Ireland. The permanent furniture of the House of Commons does not permit of more than some 400 out of its 670 members being seated within its walls. An attempt was made to admit the presence of a larger number to hear the explanation of this most momentous measure; even so, only seventy or eighty additional seats could be provided by filling the floor of the chamber with chairs. Probably there never was such a scene of anxious expectation in the modern history of Parliament.
THE FORTH BRIDGE.
This bridge, rather more than a mile in length (the principal spans being 1,710 feet each), was designed by Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker. It was commenced in 1883, and opened by the Prince of Wales in 1890. It contains about 44,500 tons of Siemens steel, and cost over £2,000,000.
The division on the second reading was taken on June 7, the corresponding Monday to that on which Mr. Gladstone’s previous Administration had fallen in 1885. Ninety-three Liberals voted against the Bill, and Ministers were left in a minority of thirty. The Liberal party was rent from summit to base, not less completely than the Conservatives had been torn asunder by the action of their leader in 1846. |Dissolution of Parliament.| The Prime Minister advised the Queen to dissolve Parliament. Sudden and sharp was the appeal; firm and not to be misunderstood was the response. Mr. Gladstone went out on his fourth Midlothian campaign, and encountered no difficulty in retaining his own seat, as no opponent came forward to challenge it. But the country turned a deaf ear to his appeal. It preferred to listen to Lord Randolph Churchill’s characteristic denunciation of the Home Rule Bill, than which he vowed that “the united and concentrated genius of Bedlam and Colney Hatch would strive in vain to produce a more striking tissue of absurdities.” He declared that the real reason they were asked to accept such a measure was only, “to gratify the ambition of an old man in a hurry.” The result of the elections showed 316 Conservatives, 78 Liberal Unionists, 191 official Liberals, and 85 Parnellites: or a majority in the new House of 113 against Mr. Gladstone’s Irish policy.
When the Queen sent for Lord Salisbury, he invited Lord Hartington to join him in forming a coalition Cabinet; but the time for that was not yet—a purely Conservative Ministry, therefore, was formed. |Lord Salisbury’s Second Administration.| Everything promised fair for the endurance of Lord Salisbury’s second Administration, but a rude shock was in store for it almost on the threshold of its career.
