.t tfiJ'Mi • L I, !- •4 ' )•( fyxmll Uttiraisitg §itotg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Hettrg M. Sage X891 Pv..^.5JD.t.-v>.A... •=»^.o..t.x:V..u.. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 088 010 099 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088010099 THE HISTORY or TWENTY-FIVE YEARS VOL. I. 1856-1865 HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE CONCLUSION OF THE GREAT WAR OF 1815 TO 1858. By SIR SPENCER WALPOLE, K.C.B. 6 vols. Crown 8vo. 6s. each. SOME UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE. Edited by SIR SPENCER WALPOLE, K.C.B. With 2 Portraits. Crown 8vo. 4s. Gd. net. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 39 Paternoster Row, London New York and Bombay. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY - FIVE YEARS BY SIR SPENCER WALPOLE, K.C.B. AHTHOB OF 'a history op ENGLAND rKOM THE CONCLUSION OE THE GBEAT WAB IN 1815' VOL. I. 1856-1865 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO 39 PATEENOSTER HOW, LONDON NEW YOBK AND BOMBAY 1904 All rights reservea T PEEFACE Nearly twenty years have passed since I published the concluding volumes of a work, in which I endea- voured to trace the History, and to describe the pro- gress, of this country from the conclusion of the Great War in 1815 to the end of the Indian Mutiny. I did not think it possible to carry the narrative further at that time. The events were too recent to fall into the perspective which History requires. The chief actors in the drama, moreover, were either still living, or had been removed only recently from the stage ; and the Historian shrinks from analysing the character and conduct of men, who are still alive, or who have only lately passed away. The lapse of time has removed these difficulties. The men, who made the chief mark on History from 1857 to 1880, are no longer with us ; the events, in which they played a part, are no longer the heated subjects of present controversy. The time has conse- quently arrived when it ought to be as possible to write the History of England from 1857 to 1880 as it was twenty years ago, to bring down the narrative of that History to 1856 or 1857. In resuming my task, however, it seemed to me, for many reasons, preferable to write a new book, instead VI THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. of continuing an old one. The annals of this country, from 1815 to the Crimean War, are interesting chiefly from a domestic standpoint. They relate its gradual recovery from the effects of protracted war, and the emancipation of its people and its trade from the melan- choly legislation of previous generations. But the annals of this country from the outbreak of the Crimean War to 1880 are of a quite different character. Except during one brief interval of legislative activity, no great domestic reforms, no great organic changes, illustrated this period of our history. But, if there was little in the conduct of Home affairs, to attract attention, the Foreign Office was abnormally active. For these were the days in which Italy gained her independence ; in which Austria was extruded from Germany ; in which the United States commenced and concluded the great struggle which has consolidated her territory and increased her power ; in which Germany succeeded to, and France descended from, the first place among nations on the continent of Europe. These great events, which have profoundly affected British interests and British policy, force the Historian of England to enlarge his canvas. The space, which it became consequently necessary to devote to the affairs of other nations, sug- gested a change in the title of this book ; and, instead of describing it as a History of England, I have called it ' The History of Twenty-five Years.' In carrying out the task — which has occupied the bulk of my time during the last five years — I have endeavoured not merely to compose a narrative, which anyone may read, but to compile a work which the student may consult. I have been consequently at PREFACE. Vll special pains, in giving the facts, to cite the authorities on which the facts are stated. I have not allowed myself to be diverted from doing so by the knowledge, which experience has given me, that this course facili- tates or even suggests one kind of easy criticism. For the author, who cites no authorities, cannot be proved to have neglected any source of information. While the writer, who quotes the book or paper on which his narrative is based, is always liable to the reproach that he has overlooked some work which does not find mention in his footnotes. In quoting the authorities, on which my narrative is based, I have followed some simple rules : (i) I have uniformly given preference to the authority, to which the ordinary student can most easily obtain access ; (ii) when the authorities are agreed, I have not thought it necessary to quote more than one of them ; (iii) when the authorities differ, I have tried to point out the difierences, or to supply the machinery for testing them; (iv) I have frequently given references which may enable the student to follow up inquiries on matters which could not be dealt with in these pages ; (v) in deal- ing with the History of England, or with English policy, I have based my narrative exclusively on original authorities. In dealing with the affairs of other nations — so long as they do not afiect British policy — I have contented myself with citing the best secondhand authorities. So far as I am able to judge, most of the material, which is likely to be available for British History in the period, with which these two volumes are concerned, is already accessible. It is not probable that much VlU THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. which is wholly new remains unavailable. The bio- graphy, indeed, which throws fresh light on the career of a great statesman was only given to the world while these volumes were passing through the press. But, through the courtesy of Mr. John Morley, I had access to the chapters, with which this book is concerned, at a much earlier period ; and I was therefore able, before I sent these pages to the printer, to correct my narra- tive by the new light which Mr. Morley has thrown on the political history of the time. S. WALPOLE. Haetpieli) Geove: January 1904. CONTENTS OP THE FIEST VOLUME. CHAPTER I, ENGLAND IN 1856. Europe in 1815 and 1856 .... The World in 1815 and 1856 .... The Eetreat of the Latin Races after 1815 The Advance of Russia .... The Expansion of the Anglo-Saxon Race The United States ..... The Isolation of the United States . The Expansion of Great Britain The Increase of the British Empire disapproved by Statesmen and Opinion ..... The Reasons for this Disapproval The Defects of Colonial Administration British Statesmen in 1856 .... Their Failure to appreciate the Trend of History The Position of France .... The slow Growth of her Population . Her increasing Debt ..... Her Colonies ..... The Contrast between French and British Development French Ambition and British Apprehension . The Franco-BngUsh Alliance ... The Growth of the Policy of Non-intervention Free Trade and Protection .... The Reaction against the Economists . The Literature of the Nineteenth Century The Revolt against the Economists in Literature 1 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 11 19 22 24 27 28 29 80 31 33 34 35 37 38 39 45 46 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Euskin, and Mr. Tennyson Their Theory of Government Mr. Disraeli . . . • Mr. Darwin . . . ■ The Historians of the Nineteenth Century PAGE 47 51 52 57 59 CHAPTER II. THE FALL OP LOBD PALMEESTON. The Position of Lord Palmerston in 1857 The State of Parties The Budgets of 1853 to 1856 . The Budget of 1857 . Sir G. C. Lewis as Chancellor of the Exchequer His Critics . The Budget adopted The Origin of the Chinese War The Case of the Arrow Proceedings in ParUament . Lord Palmerston defeated The Dissolution of 1857 The Attitude of the Country The Victory of Lord Palmerston A new Speaker . The Mutiny of the Sepoy Army Lord Palmerston promises Eeform The Law of Divorce Mr. Justice Maule's Judgment The Divorce Bill of 1856 . The Act of 1857 Its Effects . Probate Jurisdiction transferred to the New Court The Strength of Lord Palmerston's Ministry in 1857 ^^he Financial Crisis in the United States Its Extension to England '' Parliament meets The Marriage of the Princess Royal Lord Clanricarde made Privy Seal The Orsini Outrage Count Walewski's Despatch . The Conspiracy Bill . \U- 63 66 67 71 74 76 77 78 79 84 84 86 87 90 91 92 93 94 98 99 100 103 104 105 105 108 112 112 113 113 114 118 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. XI Lord Palmerston defeated . PASK . 120 Lord Derby's second Administration . . 121 The Eeconciliation with France . 123 The Trial of Dr. Bernard . 124 His Acquittal . 125 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. CHINA AND JAPAN. Lord Elgin's first Mission to China He decides on going to Calcutta His Return to Hong Kong .... Canton taken ...... China yields ...... The Defeat of the British on the Peiho Lord Elgin's second Mission to China . The Capture of the Forts on the Peiho and the Advance Tientsin ...... Mr. Parkes, Mr. Loch, and others taken Prisoners The Conclusion of the War .... Lord Elgin's Visit to Japan .... He concludes a Treaty with the Japanese Its Consequences ..... on 127 130 131 132 133 135 135 187 138 140 144 147 148 CHAPTER m. THE EBTUBN OP DOED PALMEESTON TO POWBE. The Position of Lord Derby in 1858 . The Government of India Lord Palmerston's India Bill Mr. Stuart Mill's Apology for the Company Lord Derby's India Bill The Objections to it . Lord EUenborough . Lord John Russell's Proposal The Resolutions The Oudh Proclamation Lord Ellenborough's Despatch Lord EUenborough's Resignation He is succeeded by Lord Stanley The India Bill passed 150 152 152 153 155 156 157 158 169 160 161 164 166 168 Xll THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. PAGE The Question of the Jew .... 171 Baron Eothsehild's Election . 173 The Bill of 1858 . 175 Lord Luean's Compromise . 177 Its Adoption 178 The Qualification of Members of Parliament 180 The Budget of 1868 . 182 Parliamentary Eeform . 184 The Bill of 1852 185 The Bill of 1854 185 The Bill of 1859 187 Differences in the Cabinet 189 The Bill introduced . 191 Its Defeat .... 192 Parliament dissolved . 192 Lord Derby resigns 194 Lord Granville fails to form a Ministry 195 Lord Palmerston returns to Power 195 Mr. Gladstone Chancellor of the Exchequer . 197 The Budget of 1859 . 198 The Eeform Bill of 1860 201 CHAPTEE IV. THE UNION OF ITALY. Orsini's Attempt on the Life of Napoleon III. Italy after 1848 ..... The Else of Count Cavour .... His Policy during the Crimean War . The Congress of Paris ..... The Emperor's demands on Piedmont in 1858 Orsini's Appeal to the Emperor The Meeting of Napoleon III. and Count Cavour at Plombieres The Savoy Marriage ..... Overtures to Prussia and Eussia Napoleon III. and Baron Hiibner The Speech from the Throne at Turin . The Marriage of Prince Napoleon and Princess Clothilde The Emperor's pacific Language Count Cavour' s warKke Policy - Military Preparations of Austria 206 207 207 208 209 211 213 215 218 221 223 224 225 227 228 229 CONTENTS OP THE FIRST VOLUME. XUl The Attitude of Great Britain . . . . .230 Lord Malmesbury . . ... 231 Lord Cowley's Mission to Vienna . . . . 232 The Emperor's Communication to the 'Moniteur ' . . 233 The King of Piedmont threatens Abdication . . . 234 Eussia proposes a Congress ..... 236 Count Cavour accepts the Congress .... 239 The Austrian Ultimatum ..... 240 The MiHtary Blunders of Austria . . . .243 The French come to Piedmont's Assistance . . . 244 The Campaign of 1859 . . . . .246 The Allies enter Milan . . . . . .248 The Command of the Austrian Army changed . . 249 The Battle of Solferino . . . . .250 Napoleon III.'s Desire for Peace .... 252 His Fear of Prussian Intervention .... 258 He asks England to mediate ..... 255 He proposes an Armistice ..... 257 The Treaty of Villafranca . . . . .260 The King of Piedmont and Count Cavour . . . 262 The Views of the British Ministry on the Treaty of Villafranca 263 The Condition of Central Italy . . . .264 Napoleon III.'s Anxiety ..... 265 Central Italy gravitates to Piedmont .... 266 Napoleon III. proposes a Congress .... 267 The Publication of ' Le Pape et le Congres ' . . . 269 M. Walewski retires, and Count Cavour returns to Power . 270 Lord John Eussell's Proposal ..... 271 The Annexation of Central Italy to Piedmont . . . 273 Savoy and Nice ...... 274 Their Annexation to France ..... 275 Indignation in Great Britain ..... 277 Naples. The Death of Ferdinand II. . . . .278 The CagUari . . . . . . .279 Her English Engineers imprisoned .... 280 The Difficulties of the Case . . . . .281 The Cagliari released, and the English Engineers com- pensated ....... 283 Diplomatic Eelations with Naples resumed . . . 284 The Misgovernment of Naples ..... 286 General Garibaldi's Expedition .... 287 The Attitude of the British Government . . . 290 France proposes, and England refuses, to stop Garibaldi . 292 General Garibaldi enters Naples .... 293 XIV THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. He threatens to advance on Eome Count Cavour and Napoleon III. The Piedmontese Ultimatum to the Pope The Battle of Castelfidardo The Union of Italy The Share of Count Cavour in the Work The Share of Napoleon III. in the Work The Share of the British Ministry in the Work PAGE 294 296 297 299 300 301 302 305 CHAPTER V. THE ACHIEVEMENTS OP A GBBAT FINANCE MINISTER. The Political Torpor of 1859-1865 The Fear of French Invasion . The Defects of Military Administration Sir Charles Napier . The Fortifications at Cherbourg The Effect of Steam on Naval Warfare The Panic of 1859 The Volunteers . The Success of the Movement The Additions to the Navy The Navy Estimates of 1859 and 1860 Sir John Pakington . The Navy Estimates of 1860-61 The Fortification of the Coasts Mr. Gladstone's Objections Lord Palmerston's Proposal . The Scheme adopted . The Suez Canal The Khedive's Shares The Commercial Treaty with France Mr. Cobden and the Emperor The Terms of the Treaty The Attitude of France Peeling in England . The Budget of 1860 . Mr. DisraeU's Motion Mr. Du Cane's Amendment \/Mr. Gladstone's Success The Commercial Treaty confirmed by Parliament 309 310 312 313 314 314 315 318 319 323 324 325 326 327 329 330 332 333 335 337 339 340 341 342 345 354 354 357 358 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. XV paqd: The Paper Duty ...... 359 Lord Derby's Opposition to its Eepeal . 369 Lord Palmerston's Conduct . . . 360 The Bill rejected in the Lords .... 36^ Lord Palmerston's Resolutions . . . 363 Additional Expenditure absorbs the Proceeds of the Duty 364 t' Mr. Gladstone's Position ..... 365 The Budget of 1861 .... 368 / The Paper Duty repealed . . . 370 VThe Alteration in Mr. Gladstone's Position . 371 The Alteration in the Feeling of the Country . . 371 The Budget of 1862 .... 374 Motions for Economy ..... 375 Mr. Spencer Walpole's Motion withdrawn . 376 Finance from 1863 to 1866 . . . . .378 The Proposal to tax Charities ... . 382 The Institution of Post Office Savings Banks . . 884 The Exchequer and Audit Act . . , . 887 jDoncluding Summary . . , . 889 CHAPTER VI, POLAND AND DE^MABK. The Feeling of England on the Unign of Italy , 391 The Position of Prussia . , .392 The Accession of William I. . . . .393 Herr von Bismarck . . . 394 His Autocratic Policy . 395 Insurrection in Poland .... 397 The First Demonstriation ... . 3^.^ The Continuance of the Demonstrations . . 400 The Conscription of 1863 . . .401 The Military Convention between Prussia and Russia . 402 The Attitude of the Western Powers . . 408 Lord Russell's Despatch of March 1863 . 404 The Joint Remonstrance of April 1863 . 405 The Remonstrance of June 1863 . . . 406 The last Remonstrance ... 407 The Duchies of Schleswig and of Holstein . . . 407 The Accession of Frederick VII. to the Throne of Denmark . 411 The Revolution of 1848 . . . . .411 70L. I, a XVI THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS The Conference of 1850 and the Treaty of 1862 The Action of Frederick VII. in 1863 . The Accession of Christian IX. Lord Eussell's Advice to Denmark and Germany Lord Palmerston's Declaration in July 1863 Lord Eussell's Proposal to France The French Eeply . Lord Eussell's new Action Napoleon III. proposes a Congress Lord Eussell's Eefusp,l Federal Execution in Holstein . Herr von Bismarck's PoUcy His Difficulties His Action in January 1864 Lord EusseU urges Conciliation The Eider crossed The Marriage of the Prince of Wales Feeling in England The Opinion of the Queen and the Decision of the Cabinet Lord EusseU proposes a Conference General Garibaldi's Visit to London Lord Clarendon's Mission to Paris Lord Palmerston's rash Conduct The Proceedings at the Conference Lord EusseU proposes a Compromise The Failure of the Conference . The last Overture to Prance . The last Menace of the Government The War goes on, and Denmark yields The Mistakes of the British Ministry The Conservatives attack the Ministry A Vote of Censure carried in the Lords Defeated in the Commons Lord Palmerston's Apology PAOB 412 414 415 416 418 419 420 421 422 423 425 426 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 442 443 448 445 446 446 449 450 450 451 CHAPTEE VII. THE DEATH OF LOED PALMEBSTON. The Progress of England from 1859 to 1865 . The Increased Use of Machinery The Development of the Locomotive . The Application of Machinery to Tool Making 454 455 456 457 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. XVll PAGE The Battle of the Ships and Guns .... 458 New Eailways in the Country and in London . . . 459 The Displacement of the Working Classes in Towns . . 461 Lord Derby's Action to prevent Evictions . . 463 Mr. Peabody's Gift and Sir S. Waterlow's Company . 464 The Metropolitan Board of Works . . . .465 The State of the Thames in 1858 . . . .466 The proposed Remedy ..... 467 The Thames Embankment ..... 468 The Coal and Wine Duties continued .... 469 The Embankment and other Improvements adopted . . 470 The Application of Steam to the Mercantile Marine . . 472 The Introduction of the Steam Propeller . . . 473 The Invention of Compound Engines .... 474 The Increasing Size and Power of Steam Vessels . . 475 The Great Eastern . . . . . .476 The Atlantic Telegraph . . . . .477 An Attempt to lay a Cable in 1857 is renewed in 1858 . 481 Rejoicings at its Success .... 481 The Cable dumb . . . . . .482 A new Enterprise decided on . . . . . 483 " ^Apathy in the United States .... 484 'T/ Doubts in England ...... 485 The Great Eastern purchased . . 485 The Attempt of 1865 . . .486 Its Failure . . . . . . .487 The Cable laid in 1866 . . . . .488 The Introduction of Anaesthetics . . . 489 Law Reform ....... 491 Bankruptcy . ...... 492 The Transfer of Real Estate . . . . .492 The Consolidation of the Statutes .... 493 Imprisonment for Debt . . . . 494 The Equity Jurisdiction of County Courts . . . 496 Mr. Leonard Edmunds .... . 497 Mr. Welch 499 Lord Westbury resigns the Chancellorship . . 501 Mr. Stansfeld compelled to resign . . . 502 Mr. Lowe and the Revised Code . . . 503 Elementary Education .... . 503 The Royal Commission of 1858 . . .506 The Revised Code . . • .509 Debates in Parliament on the Code . . . 611 The Code amended and passed . . . .612 XVlll THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS PAGK The Revolt of the Inspectors . . 518 Lord Robert Cecil's Motion . 514 Mr. Lowe's Resignation . . .615 Other Changes in the Ministry . 516 The Question of an Under Secretary's Seat 517 Lord Palmerston's Popularity . . 518 The Political .Calm of 1865 . . 519 The General Election of 1865 . 520 Mr. Gladstone rejected at Oxford .... 521 His Election for South Lancashire . . . 628 The Death and Character of Lord Palmerston . 624 THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAPTEE I. ENGLAND IN 1856. The map of Europe, after the conclusion of the Peace chap. i. of Paris in 1856, bears a striking resemblance to the ""isseT same map after the Treaties of Paris in 1815. The Europe in boundaries of the great continental nations remained i856. practically unaltered. Germanj^ still included a Con- federation of little States. Italy was still a geogra- phical expression. In the north-west, indeed, Belgium had been separated from the Kingdom of the Nether- lands ; in the south-east, Greece had been rescued from Turkish oppression ; in the east, the small Eepublic of Cracow had been absorbed by an adjacent Empire. But, in other respects, little had been changed. Even the frontier of Eussia, which had been advanced in 1829, had been set back in 1856 ; and the map which Pitt had desired should be rolled up after Austerlitz would have rendered useful service if it had been unrolled fifty years afterwards. If, however, the student will turn over the pages of The world his historical atlas, and divert his attention from the .^"3 185G. map of Europe to the map of the world, he will find himself contemplating change instead of in the presence VOL. I. B THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEABS. of Stability. In 1815 many portions of the earth's surface were still unknown. In the larger part of Africa civilised man had not penetrated beyond the coasts ; the shape of Australia was still undetermined, its interior was unexplored. Great districts of Northern and Southern America, of Northern and Central Asia, were as inaccessible as the poles. In 1856, on the contrary, the blank spaces on the map of 1815 were becoming known. The shape of Australia was no longer imperfectly defined; its interior was slowly revealing its secrets. The western shores of the North American continent were explored, and in some places occupied. The forests of Africa were being gradually penetrated. The great islands of the Indian Ocean were becoming accessible. The interior of Asia alone remained as little kn'own as in the days of the Eoman Empire. If in 1815 vast tracts of the world's surface re- mained unknown, other tracts, almost as vast, remained the heritage of the Latin races. Much of the rich territory which the United States now possess on the Pacific, and the whole of Central America, acknow- ledged the supremacy of Spain. All that was known of South America, except some comparatively small colonies on the north-east, was divided between Spain The and Portugal. In 1856 all this was changed. The theLatin Latin races had almost completely retired as govern- ing powers from the American continent. The mighty empire of Spain — on which, as the proud boast ran, the sun never set — was represented by some islands in the western and eastern hemispheres: the mere flotsam and jetsam, if the phrase be permissible, of a great dominion. The retreat of Spain and Portugal did not result in the intrusion of any other European Power into the American continent. President Monroe, with races after 1815. THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. Mr. Canning's knowledge, or rather at his instigation/ was making it plain that the United States would not tolerate European intervention in the western hemi- sphere ; and the American colonies of Spain remained autonomous republics ; the great Portuguese colony of Brazil an independent empire. The dissolution of the great colonial empires of Spain and Portugal constituted the chief change on the world's surface which was effected between 1815 and 1856. In the same period another branch of the Latin race was advancing in Africa. The conquest of Algeria occupied the French for nearly twenty years ; but it formed the most important acquisition which they had made since the days of the great Napoleon. The three countries of the world, however, which, The ad- from 1815 to 1856, were most rapidly appropriating Russia. fresh territory were Eussia, the United States, and' the United Kingdom. The acquisitions of Eussia in Asia were, indeed, almost unnoticed at the time at which they were made. The diplomatists of Europe, busily watching Eussia's progress towards Constantinople, had little leisure to study her expansion in Asia. Yet the Eussians were slowly pressing down the eastern shores of the Black Sea, and acquiring continually greater predominance on the Caspian. Nor was this all. The very treaty which set back their boundary in Europe stimulated their activity in the steppes of Asia and on the shores of the Pacific. In the one case they were already encamped on the Syr Daria ; in the other they were about to obtain from the Chinese the cession of the territory on the left bank of the Amur. 'These conquests,' wrote the highest authority on the subject, ' form the greatest continuous extent of territory by land which the world has ever seen. No other European power in any age has, or could have ^ The Cambridge Modern History, vol. vii. p. 369. 4 THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEABS. CHAP. I. had, such a continuous dominion, because no other 1856. European power ever had the unknown barbarian The ex- world lying in the same way at its side.' ^ Yet, in the fhe A^gio- period in which Eussia was striding across Asia, twO' Saxon other nations, sprung from other ancestry, and akin to^ one another, were making still more remarkable pro- gress, and were destined to share between them that great continent of North America, which apparently will exert a constantly increasing influence on the- industry and history of mankind. At the commencement of the nineteenth century the United States of America were confined to the territory belonging to the thirteen colonies which had revolted from British rule. It was only in 1804 that the purchase of Louisiana from France — to whom it had been ceded by Spain — opened up a prospect of almost indefinite expansion to the young republic : ^ an expansion which was accentuated by the annexation of ■> Texas in 1845 and the con£uest_j)f Mexico in 1848.^ It was the Louisiana purchase and the Mexican war which made the States the rival of the Chinese Empire in size, and which promise to make them, in the near future, the rival of the Eussian Empire in population. Even, however, before these great acquisitions raised the United States to a leading position among the nations of the world, the predominance of the Anglo- Saxon race on the American continent was assured. Perhaps, indeed, those who believe that it is the mission or the burden of this great family to occupy the waste places of the earth, and to bestow the blessings 1 Freeman, Sistorical Geography cession of Florida and its shadowy of Europe, vol. i. p. 539. claims by Spain in 1819 {Bist. of * ' The United States are now a England, vol. v. p. 388). But I am power of the first rank,' said Mr. anxious to emphasise the two great Livingstone when the sale was com- acquisitions which raised the United pleted. See Ollivier, L'Empire States from a comparatively small LibSral, vol. v. p. 289. to a gigantic power. ^ Perhaps I ought to add the THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. O -of good government on the inferior races of mankind, chap. i. may think that there are few happier circumstances in i856. history than that Columbus should have been seeking the back door of the Indies when he knocked at the front door of America. For, had he taken a more northern course, and shortened by doing so his memor- able voyage, Cortez and Pizarro might have followed in his footsteps and inflicted the evils of Spanish rule on the States where the Anglo-Saxon race has thriven and multiplied. Happily the Spaniards, occupied in a search for gold in the tropics, left the more temperate regions in the north open to British, French, and Dutch settlers, and the stone which the builders re- fused became the head stone of the corner. Much of the vast territory which we now know as The the United States was in 1856 unexplored and unde- ^^^^^^ veloped. In the north-west the Missouri was still the practical boundary of civilisation. Chicago, founded only in 1831, and incorporated only in 1837, was still in its infancy. But the population of the States was, almost everywhere, increasing with a speed which has no parallel in the history of the world. There were probably only 4,000,000 people in the States in the days of Washington ; ^ there were some 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 in 1815 ; there were some 30,000,000 in 1856. ' In the West,' said Everett, ' what is a wilder- ness to-day is a settled neighbourhood to-morrow.' ^ The words of Burke were still true : ' Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations.' ^ Yet, within the bounds of this great republic, there were in 1856 two nations with different interests, with 1 Burke, in his great speecli in ' Rhodes, Sist. of the United 1775, estimated the population at States, vol. iii. p. 4. -2,500,000. Burke's Works, vol. iii. ^ Burke's Works, vol. iii. p. 36. p. 35. THE HISTOKY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. different ideas, with different tendencies. In the Southern States, where a hot and enervating climate made it diffi- cult or impossible for the white man to labour, the soil was tilled, the crops were gathered, by the forced labour of negro slaves. In the Northern States, on the con- trary, where more temperate conditions encouraged the white man to settle and work, slave labour was, at once, illegal and unpopular. Though North and South were sprung from the same ancestry, the conscience of the one approved what the conscience of the other con- demned. The North declared that slavery was hateful in the sight of God, and obnoxious to the best interests of man. The South replied that the Old Testament showed that slavery was God's own institution, and that in the New Testament St. Paul himself gave up Onesimus, a fugitive slave, to Philemon. The most prominent man in the Southern States declared in 1859 that there was not ' probably an intelligent mind among our own citizens who doubts either the moral or the legal right of the institution of African slavery.' ^ Verily the consciences of the same race may be strangely affected by the fact that they dwell either to the north or the south of the 36th parallel.^ It will be the object of another chapter to relate the consequences of this radiqal difference of opinion between North and South. Here it may be sufficient to point out that the South was already representing^ the past, the North the future, of American history. The North was growing faster than the South, and, with the increase of population, power was passing slowly but surely into its hands. The immigrants whO' were constantly arriving from Europe in increasing- numbers naturally preferred a home in those Northern ^ JeiFerson Davis. See Rhodes, which the Missouri Compromise Hist, of the United States, vol. ii. assigned in 1820 to freedom on one p. 372. side and slavery on the other. 2 Latitude 36° 30' was the limit THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. / States where white men could work and live, and where chap. i. labour was dear, to residence in the South, where 1856. tropical heat interfered with white labour, and, where slavery reduced the wage rate to a low level. The immigrant brought to the North the intelligence which the white man everywhere displays, and which is quickened by the necessities arising from new con- ditions. The negro gave wealth to the slave-owning South, but he conferred no other benefit upon it. While industry and invention were endowing the North with the reaper, the sewing machine, and other labour- saving appliances, the South invented nothing, changed nothing. Its whole energies were concentrated on producing as much cotton and as much tobacco as could be extorted from the labour of a negro slave. Separated from Europe by 3,000 miles of ocean. The isoia- the thoughts, the habits, the growth of the American states. people were only imperfectly understood by European statesmen. Steam, indeed, had already bridged the Atlantic. But the comparatively small vessels which crossed the ocean had neither the speed nor the comfort to attract any large number of passengers.^ More rapid means of communication there were none. The first abortive attempt to lay an electric cable under the Atlantic had not been made in 1856, and the two great English-speaking countries, therefore, had not been brought into that close touch and communication which, forty years later on, was to do so much to cement their friendship. ' From 1850 a keen competition vessel sailed from Liverpool and took place between the Cunard and was never heard of. These accidents the Collins lines of steamers. The were attributed to the excessive Collins line was supported by large speed at which the vessels were subsidies from Congress, and in 1854 driven, and Congress withdrew the one of its vessels reached New York subsidy. Rhodes, Hist, of the in nine days and seventeen hours United States, vol. iii. pp. 9-12. after she had left Liverpool. A few Thenceforward for many years the months afterwards another vessel of trans-oceanic traffic remained in the same line was sunk in a collision, British hands, and two years later still a third 8 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. The distance which separated the United States 1856. from England was in one sense an advantage to the States. Secure from invasion, and with little interest in European politics, the Government had no occasion to maintain the costly armaments which were consuming the industries of other nations. If 1860 may be taken as a convenient year for comparison,^ the 29,000,000 people of the United Kingdom raised a revenue of 70,000,000^.; the 30,000,000 people of the United States were content with a revenue of less than 12,000,000^. The wars of previous generations had saddled the older country with a debt of 800,000,000/. The younger people had a debt of only 14,000,000Z. The trade of the older country was naturally greater than that of a younger people scattered over a vast dominion. But, in one important respect, the trade of the United States was the rival of our own. Her mer- cantile marine competed with the sailors of England in every port. The two Anglo-Saxon countries had in their hands the bulk of the carrying trade of the world, and, though the balance still inclined in favour of Great Britain, the scales Tvere nearly even.^ The ex- With the other English-speaking country we must pansion t i i • i • t of Great tarry a little longer m these mtroductory remarks. Britain, rjj^g British Empire in 1815 comprised all the rudiments of its future growth. It had vast possessions in all four quarters of the globe. In area, its colonies in ' Convenient because it imme- marine had a tonnage of 6,350,000 diately precedes the great American tons. It seems, however, hardly Civil war. reasonable to include the tonnage ^ American writers now, and of the great lakes in the comparison. American statesmen in 1860, It is due to America, however, to claimed that their mercantile recollect that she had the fastest marine was already larger than ocean-going steamer afloat, the that of Great Britain. And, if the Baltic, and the fastest yacht afloat, tonnage on the great lakes is in- the America. At least, I be- cluded, the claim is justified. For lieve that the America still main- in 1860, while the United Kingdom .tained the superiority which she had an estimated tonnage of had established in 1851. 4,660,000 tons, the United States THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 9 North America and Australia far exceeded all others, chap. i. But even statesmen and statisticians did not recognise ^isseT" the extent and resources of the territories which were, directly or indirectly, under the control of the British Crown, and at the disposal of the British people. In a parliamentary return, published in 1863, the whole area of the British colonies is placed at only 3,356,000 square miles ; their whole white population at a little more than 6,000,000 people. Canada, whose area is now computed at almost exactly the mileage which in 1868 was assigned to the whole colonial empire of Britain, is credited in the return with only 512,000 square miles of territory ; and Australasia, which at the end of the nineteenth century contained nearly 5,000,000 inhabitants, in 1863 did not support 1,250,000 white people.^ In fact, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the vast wealth which lay undeveloped in JSTorth- western America and Australasia was unknown and unsuspected. Even so lately as 1858 the British public was assured that the greiater part of the territory belonging to the H^^kon's Bay Company con- sisted of primitive rock, alternating with deep swamps, which, as the rock was too hard to decompose, seemed condemned to perpetual sterility.^ This was the language which could be applied to a territory which some forty years later was regarded as the future granary of the world. The vast possessions in Northern America, the equally great inheritance of Australasia, were waste and unoccupied territories which it was the 1 Pari. Papers, 1863, toI. xxxviii. in 1851 at 3,834,000 square miles, p. 1. The small area of Canada The article is republished in Greg's was partly accounted for by the Essays on Political and Social fact that the vast regions of the Science, vol. ii. p. 219. Hudson's Bay Territory were not ^ See Times of the 22nd of July, included in the dominions of the 1868, and cf. a speech of Lord Pal- Queen. Mr. Greg, in an article in merston's in Hansard, vol. cxlviii. the Edinburgh Review, computed p. 1277. the area of the British colonies 10 THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAKS. work of later generations to occupy and cultivate. In Australia, before 1856, the discovery of gold had given an impulse to immigration. In Canada the population had already risen in that year to some two millions and a half. But its people only multiplied at a slightly higher rate than that with which statesmen were familiar in the Old World, and showed no tendency to advance by the rapid strides which, in the United States, had exceeded all recorded experience. The warmer climate of the States offered greater attractions to the emigrant than the colder climate of the colony. The open harbours of the States afforded greater facilities to the merchant than the ice-bound approaches of Canada. The sunny South will always, in the first instance, beat the sluggish North in the struggle for power and wealth. But the hardships which the North en- dures may, in the course of successive generations, infuse qualities into her offspring which the children of the South may not inherit. For it is not in the cradle of ease but in the struggle with diificulty that the dominating races of mankind are nurtured. It is not by merely availing themselves of the opportunities which Nature offers, but by triumphing over the obstacles which she presents, that nations, like men, rise to fame and fortune. These reflections, however, would have occurred to no one in 1856. The rapid growth of the States, the slower growth of Canada, apparently pointed to other issues, and people speculated on the possible absorption of the colony in the republic. This result seemed the more probable because in matters of trade the two countries were arriving at an understanding, and " a treaty of reciprocity between them had been concluded in 1854. It seemed natural to infer that commercial agreement might ultimately pave the way for pohtical union, and that the two great English-speaking com- THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 11 munities of the western hemisphere might be drawn chap. i. into closer relations with each other. i856.~ If the work of Britain in America and Australia had been to occupy and replenish the waste places on the world's surface, the British had been engaged in another struggle in Africa and Asia. In Africa the boundaries of their dominion had been gradually pushed forward, and the territory under British rule had been practically doubled. In Asia still greater changes had occurred. Lord Hastings had added to the Company's dominions territories in Central and Northern India as large as those over which "Warren Hastings had ruled.^ During the period of his governorship, moreover, the whole of Ceylon was made a British colony, and the British hold on the East was further strengthened by the occupation of Singapore. Lord Amherst gave us the Tenasserim coast and an entrance to Burma ; Lord EUenborough, Scindh ; Lord Dalhousie, Oudh, the Punjab, Berar, Nagpore, and Lower Burma. These successive additions to the East India Company's dominions placed practically the whole of India under British rule. The independent states which still remained existed only on the sufferance of the Company. It is a broad but sufficiently accurate generalisation, therefore, to say that the great changes which had taken place in the map of the world from 1815 to 1856 had been (1st) the retreat of Spain and Portugal, and (2nd) the advance of Eussia, of Great Britain, and of the United States. But it must_notJ)e supposed that The in- the continunuR expaTi'sTnri of the British Empire roused theBritlsh anv sreneral enthusiasm among British people or British f."^P"e _statesnien. The_j:esponsibilities of . rule were much proved clearer than its_adv,aiitages. British statesmen had men and not forgotten the disastrous events which had deprived op'"°"- us of our original American colonies, and led to the ^ Hist, of England, vol. vi. p. 123. 12 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. formation of the United States. The youngest member ~ 1856. ^^ the Cabinet was old enough to remember that Canada, twenty years before, had been on the brink of rebellion, and probably held the current opinion that the growth of the colony would lead either to its in- dependence or to its absorption in the neighbouring republic. Our rule, both at the Cape and in New Zealand, was chiefly associated with a series of trouble- some wars, which brought little credit to our arms, and imposed many burdens on the taxpayer, while in 1857 a mutiny of the sepoy army was about to impose a new strain on the resources of the country, and to threaten the permanence of British rule in India. In these circumstances a general impression was created that the circumference of the Empire was too large for its centre, and that it was wiser to abstain from adding to our responsibilities than to go on increasing them. Such opinions were not new in the history of the nation. The Duke of Grafton was the colleague of Lord Chatham, the first and greatest of the Imperialists, if a nineteenth-century phrase may be applied to an eighteenth-century statesman. Yet the Duke wrote : ' I cannot bring myself fairly to rejoice when I hear the account of a splendid victory [in India] gained over some country power, which probably might have become by good management an ally, because it brings to my thoughts all the evils which, I conceive, India has brought to this country.' ^ Twenty years before the Duke recorded this opinion - Parliament itself had formally declared that the present schemes of conquest and extension of dominion in India are ' measures repugnant to the wish, the honour, and policy of the nation.' ^ A few years later Arthur Young, ' Anson's Duke of Grafton,-p. 169. •> 24 Geo. III. cap. 25; Sist. of * The Duke's Autobiography was England, vol. vi. p. 74. completed in 1805. THE HISTORY OF. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 13 wHose judgment was usually as acute as his observa- chap. i. tion was penetrating, declared that ' all transmarine or 1856. distant dominions are sources of weakness, and that to renounce them would be wisdom.' ^ Fifty-seven years after the Act of 1784, Sir Eobert Peel,^ perhaps the most sagacious minister of the nineteenth century, regarded the connection with Canada in much the same light as that in which the Duke of Grafton had viewed the conquest of India. In the peroration to a great speech on colonial policy, which he made in 1850, Lord John Eussell distinctly contemplated that the time might come when the colonies would claim and the mother country would concede their independence.^ Mr. Disraeli, writing in 1852, told Lord Malmesbury that ' these wretched colonies will all be independent in a few years, and are a millstone round our necks.' * The Duke of Newcastle declared that he should see a dissolution of the bond between the mother country and Canada with the greatest pleasure.^ Sir Henry Taylor, whose reputation as a poet must not be allowed to obscure the fact that he was a distinguished officer of the Colonial Office, wrote : 'As to the American pro- vinces, I have long held, and have often expressed, the opinion that they are a sort of damnosa hereditas.' ^ ' Travels in France, 2nd edition, dially support those measures which p. 262. we consider necessary for their good ^ ' Let us keep Nova Scotia and government and for the maintenance New Brunswick, for their geographi- of a safe connection with them, let cal position makes their sea coast us have a friendly separation while of great importance to us. But there is yet time.' Peel's Memoirs, the connection with the Oanadas, vol. iii. p. 889. against their will, nay, without the ^ Hansard, vol. cviii. p. 567 ; and cordial co-operation of the predomi- cf Lord Elgin's criticism of the nant party in Canada, is a very peroration in Waldron's Life of onerous one. If the people are not Lord Elgin, pp. 115-120. cordially with us,- why should we * Autobiography of an Ex-Minis- contract the tremendous obligation ter, p. 260. of having to defend, on a point '•" Brande's Lord Beaconsfield, of honour, their territory against p. 329. American aggression ^ If they are " Sir H. Taylor's Autobiography, not with us, or if they will not cor- vol. ii. p. 234. 14 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. CHAP. I. Even the late Lord Grey, who understood the colonies 1856. much more thoroughly than most English statesmen, thought that few persons would dissent from the opinion that it would be far better if British territory in South Africa had been confined to Cape Town and to Simon's Bay.i Sir W. Molesworth, who enjoys the distinction that he was almost alone among British statesmen in recognising the advantages of Australia and Canada, and in predicting that if they were endowed with autonomy they would become important constituents in a united empire, was opposed to aU. territorial expansion in Africa, and even doubted the advantage of retaining the Cape.^ A younger statesman, who in later years was to become Prime Minister, said in .Parliament that ' it might be fairly questioned whether it had been wise originally to colonise [the Cape and New Zealand], and whether, looking back on all the results, we had been repaid for the great cost and anxiety which they had entailed.' ^ Sir G. C. Lewis, in his great work on the government of dependencies, summed up the advantages and disadvantages of empire in words * which deprived Imperial rule of even the barren attribute of glory. Li 1864, Parliament itself, under the guidance of Lord Palmer ston, voluntarily surrendered the Ionian Islands to Greece.^ In 1850 ^ Lord Grey's Colonial Policy, almost inevitable consequences of its vol. ii. p. 248. political condition, such a possession ^ Life of Sir W. Molesworth, cannot justly be called glorious.' ch.. xiv., and cf. p. 311 seq. Government of Dependencies, p. 233. ^ Lord R. Cecil in House of Com- Sir G. Lewis said in Parliament, in mons, Hansard,, Tol. clxi. p. 1414. 1862, 'I, for one, can only say that * ' If a country possesses a I look forward without apprehen- dependency from which it derives sion — and, I may add, without re- uo public revenxie, no military or gret — to the time when Canada naval strength, no commercial ad- might become an independent state.' vantages, or facilities for emigra- Hansard, vol. clxviii. p. 860. tion, which it would not equally ° The Ionian Islands were placed enjoy though the dependency were ' under the exclusive protectorate independent ; and if, moreover, the of Great Britain ' in 1815, and for dependency suffers the evils which forty-eight years were administered (as we shall show hereafter) are the by a succession of English governors. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 15 the Privy Council, in reluctantly sanctioning the chap. i. annexation of the Orange Eiver Sovereignty, declared jggg, that 'we cannot pass from this part of the subject Their rule conferred some material benefits on the people, but did not reconcile the inhabitants to British government. Greek in origin and language, they desired union -with Greece ; and, as the years rolled on, their desire increased in intensity. Early in 1849 an outbreals in Cephalonia was suppressed with perhaps unnecessary severity by Sir Henry Ward ; and, in 1857, Sir John Young, who had succeeded Sir Henry, frankly avowed that England was in a false position, and that, retaining Corfu and Paxo, she should surrender the other islands to Greece. The publication of this despatch created a fresh ferment. It not only encouraged the phil- hellenic party in the islands, but it drove the people of Corfu and Paxo angrily to protest against the as- sumption that they desired incor- poration with Great Britain. It was at this juncture that Sir E. Lytton Bulwer, succeeding for a few months to the Colonial Office, entrusted Mr. Gladstone with a mission to the islands. Mr. Glad- stone went with the object of strengthening the connection of the islands with this covintry. He found that he was received by the people as the cultivated exponent of that very philhellenism which was agi- tating the islands. His mission, so far from fulfilling its real object, only increased the desire for incor- poration in Greece. The islanders rejected the reforms he offered, and set themselves again to demand the union which he refused. Sir Henry Storks, who, on Mr. Gladstone's return to England, was entrusted with the government of the islands, found it necessary to prorogue the Parliament ; and Mr. Gladstone himself, in a speech in the House of Commons in 1861, declared that England could not abandon her protectorate without the consent of Europe, and that it would be nothing less than a crime against the safety of Europe if England were to do so. Hansard, vol. clxii. p. 1 688. The end, however, was coming very near. In 1862, the year after Mr. Gladstone's speech. King Otho (of Bavaria) was forced to abdicate the Greek throne; a desire was everywhere expressed in Greece that Prince Alfred, the Queen's second son, should be chosen as his successor, and that opportunity should be taken of the choice to carry out the union of the Ionian islands with Greece. The invita- tion to the Prince was ultimately refused. But Lord Russell, at the end of 1862, told our Minister at Athens that if Greece succeeded in maintaining constitutional govern- ment at home, and refrained from aggression abroad, her Majesty would consent to a union of the islands with the kingdom ; and, on the Greeks ultimately selecting Prince William of Denmark as their sovereign, the transfer was actually made. It was formally announced at the close of the Session of 1863. Hansard, vol. clxxii. p. 1491. But debates had already occurred on the subject (see ibid., vol. clxxi. p. 1719), and were resumed in the following year {vide e.g. vol. clxxiv. p. 344). The cession was carried out with the consent of the powers who had signed the treaties of 1815, and with the formal assent of the islanders themselves. See also Pari. Papers, 1863, vol. xxxviii. p. 141. The corre- spondence respecting the cession is reprinted in State Papers, vol. liv. p. 84 seq. ; the treaty of the 14th of November, 1863, in ibid., vol. liii. p. 19. There is an admirable chapter in Mr. Morley's Life of Gladstone on Mr. Gladstone's mission. See book iv. ch. x. ; and cf Sir Henry Elliot's privately printed Diplo- matic Recollections, pp. 155-233. 16 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. without submitting for your Majesty's consideration "1856. our opinion that very serious dangers are inseparable from the recent, and still more from any future, extension of your Majesty's possessions in Southern Africa. . . . Unless some decisive method can be taken to prevent further advances in the same direction, it will be impossible to assign any limit to the growth of these unprofitable acquisitions. ... In humbly advising that the Orange Eiver Sovereignty should be added to the dominions of your Majesty's Crown, we think our- selves bound therefore to qualify that recommendation by the further advice that all officers who represent, or who may hereafter represent, your Majesty in Southern Africa, should be interdicted, in terms as explicit as can be employed, and under sanctions as grave as can be devised, from niaking any addition, whether permanent or provisional, of any territory however small to the existing dominions of your Majesty in the African continent, and from doing any act, or using any language, conveying, or which could reasonably be construed to convey, any promise or pledge of that nature.' ^ In 1862 the Government formally declined to entertain the offer of the sovereignty of the Fiji Islands, which had been made to it in 1859 ; ^ while finally, in 1865, a strong committee of the House of Commons reported that all further extension of territory (in West Africa) was inexpedient, and that it was desirable ultimately to withdraw from the whole country except probably Sierra Leone, adding that the policy of non-extension admitted of no exception as regards new settlements.^ These views were shared by ^ The minute of the Privy Adderley (Lord Norton) its chair- Council will be found in the Life of man, comprised among its members Sir H. Smith, vol. ii. p. 237, note. Mr. Cardwell, Lord Stanley, Lord ^ The sovereignty was assumed Hartington, Mr. Chichester For- in 1874. tescue, Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald, " Pari. Papers, 1865, vol. v. p. 1. Sir F. Baring, Mr. Buxton, Mr. The Committee, which made Mr. William Forster, and Sir William THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 17 men of thought and men of action on the Continent. In the eighteenth century, for example, Voltaire con- sidered that the loss of Canada by France was no real loss. Canada, so he argued, had cost a great deal more than she had returned. If a tenth of the wealth which had been absorbed by the colony had been employed in fertilising the uncultivated lands of France, the profit would have been much greater.^ In the nineteenth century Prince Bismarck came to a similar conclusion. ' I do not want,' so he said in 1870, ' any colonies at all. Their only use is to provide sinecures. That is aU England gets out of her colonies, and Spain too.' ^ The views of Voltaire and Prince Bismarck were shared by less prominent persons. So lately as CHAP. I. Gregory. It specifically recom- mended that Macarthy Island on the Gambia should be abandoned, and that the Government of all the Settlements should be centralised in Sierra Leone. In accordance with these recommendations, Mr. Card- well, speaking as Colonial Secretary in 1866, said that orders had been given for the abandonment of Ma- carthy Island ; that the Governor of Sierra Leone had been appointed Governor of the Lower Settlements, and had received instructions for the reduction of the establishment at Lagos. Hansard, vol. clxxxi. p. 195. It is interesting to note that Ma- carthy Island, whose abandonment was thus officially ordered, still re- mains an integral part of our terri- tory on the Gambia ; and that Lagos, which had been occupied only in 1861, and whose establishment was selected for reduction in 1866, has now a separate governor, a separate revenue, and a separate expenditure. In the text I have purposely quoted only responsible statesmen. Men out of office wrote and spoke even more strongly. Mr. Cobden, for instance, said in 1857, ' I never could feel any enthusiasm for the reform of our Indian Government, for I failed to satisfy myself that it VOL. I. was possible to rule that vast empire with advantage to its people or ourselves. I now regard the task as utterly hopeless.' Motley's Cobden, vol. ii. p. 213. So different a man as Mr. Greville, writing about the same time, said, ' I have long expected that the day would come when we should find reason for regretting our expansive policy [in India].' And again, ' I always tremble for the consequences of our excesses [in China], that we should be induced or compelled into further extensions of our empire in the Far East.' Greville, 3rd Series, vol. i. pp. 114, 117. For some further dicta of the same kind, see Im- perium et Libertas, by B. Holland, pp. Ill, 112. ' Steele de Louis XIV., vol. iv, p. 330. ^ Busch's Bismarck, vol. i. p. 552. Bentham had formed pre- cisely the same opinion. He re- garded colonies as an 'aimless burden,' and he exhorted the French to emancipate them. In the same spirit, he protested against Pitt's policy of appropriating useless and expensive colonies instead of driving ' at the heart of the monster.' See Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians, vol. i. p. 198. 18 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAKS. ' 1867, when the guarantee of the Canadian Eailway was proposed in Parliament, Mr. Cave, the member for Barnstaple, remarked that, instead of giving 3,000,000 sterling with a view of separating Canada from the United States, it would be more sensible and more patriotic to give 10,000,000 in order to unite them.' Thirty years later such a remark would have been denounced as treachery : in 1867 it did not elicit a single protest.^ It is fair to add that, even before the middle of the century, a few Englishmen had already formed a differ- ent opinion of the value of British colonies. Sir W. Molesworth had made himself conspicuous by dilating on the importance of autonomous colonies ; and, in his famous Canadian Eeport, to which Mr. "Wakefield was said to have supplied the thought and Mr. Charles Buller the style. Lord Durham had applied the principles which Sir W. Molesworth had already advanced in the House of Commons. But even Sir W. Molesworth confined these views to the great autonomoiis colonies in Australia and Canada, and was as much opposed as Lord Grey to expansion in Africa. It was the misfor- tune, too, of the country that three of these men — the pioneers of colonial autonomy — should have been pre- maturely cut off in the prime of life. Lord Durham died in 1840 ; Mr. Charles Buller in 1848 ; Sir W. Molesworth in 1856 ; Mr. Wakefield, who alone ap- proached the allotted threescore years and ten, in 1862; and, though in one sense their work was done, or the ' foundations of it well and truly laid, no one remained to carry it on with the same energy on the same hues. The few Englishmen, moreover, who were familiar with the public accounts could not help observing that, whatever advantages the colonies might confer, it was 1 Morley's Miscellanies, vol. iii. p. 293. Mr. Cave's speech is in Hansard, vol. clxxxvi. p. 748. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 19 •certain that they threw the disadvantage of heavy chap. i. expenditure on the mother country. In the return 1856. which has already been quoted, the total Imperial The expenditure on the colonies is placed at more than folthis 3,500,000^., or at IZ. for every square mile of territory. Jj.'„^/;i Much of this expenditure was, no doubt, incurred in places like Malta or Gibraltar, where garrisons were maintained. But Canada cost 430,000/., Australia 270,000/., the Cape 500,000/. In the 'sixties expendi- ture of this kind was not regarded with the compla- cency with which it was met thirty years afterwards.^ In 1867, indeed, Mr. Lowe — repeating in the House evidence which he had previously given in a Select Committee — said, ' In the time of the American Eevo- lution the colonies separated from England because she insisted on taxing them. What I apprehend as likely to happen now is, that England will separate from her colonies because they insist on taxing her.' ^ The doubts which in consequence had arisen on the advantages, and even on the permanence of empire, were partly due to the altered relations between the mother country and the colonies. Under the old com- mercial system the colonies had been treated as the appanage of the mother country, and had been forced to buy what they wanted in the markets of the United Kingdom. But, under the new system of free trade, the colonies were enabled to buy and sell in any con- venient market.^ A theory, indeed, had already been originated which later on was to find expression in the aphorism, ' Trade follows the flag ; ' and the utility of ' Pari. Papers, 1863, vol. xxxviii. whole cost of the colony to the p. 1. Mr. Adderley (Lord Norton) mother country at 1,500,000^. said in Parliament that, in New ^aresart?, vol. Clxv. pp.' 1442-3. Zealand alone, this country main- ^ Hansard, vol. clxxxvi. p. 762. tained an army of 7,000 men ; the ^ I have discussed this point in cost of this force (at 100/. a man) Hist, of En()laml,\ol. vi. p. 327 seq. could not have been less than See also Lewis's Government of 700,000/., and a public man in New Dependencies, pp. 214-224. Zealand actually estimated the c 2 20 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. British colonies was in some places defended on this ^ieT ground. But the aphorism is precisely one of those telling phrases which it is not very difficult to coin, but whose truth it is not very easy to prove ; and in 1856 its accuracy would not have been accepted by any competent authority.^ In 1856, too, the ordinary Englishman was not so satisfied, as his successor became at the end of the nine- teenth century, that the British race had a special capa- city for the government of dependencies. His rule in India seemed chiefly associated with wars which he did not approve, and with mutiny which was straining the lesources of the Empire. Canada was connected in his mind with discontent and rebellion. The Cape and New Zealand recalled to his recollection a series of trouble- some and provoking wars with native races. The ex- pedient of autonomous institutions in Australia was still on its trial ; and the gift of freedom to slaves in the West Indies had not succeeded in converting any one of these islands into a Utopia. And the English- man who honestly examines the state of British depen- dencies at the commencement of the twentieth century may, perhaps, have reason to think that a preceding generation had more cause than he is now ready to acknowledge for its hesitation and its doubts. Where- ever, indeed, England has been able to give autonomous institutions to men of European extraction, her sway has been attended with results which, on the whole, have been both beneficent and advantageous. It is impossible,, again, to avoid the conclusion that her rule in India has conferred almost unmixed benefits on the teeming millions of that great peninsula; Where, again, her flag has been raised on those points of the world's sur- '^ See Mr. Lucas's observations in cannot do better than consult Appendix iii. to Lewis's Government Merivale, Colonisation and ColomeSf of Dependencies. For the whole Lectures vii. and viii. subject of colonial trade the reader THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 21 face, like Hong Kong, Colombo, or Singapore, which chap. i. have become the centres of a concentrated trade, or i856. indispensable links in the commerce of the world, the wealth which has followed the enterprise of her merchants has brought a large measure of prosperity. But those who have read Mr. Froude's works or Miss Kingsley's reflections — those who have some know- ledge of the state of the West Indies to-day, or of the Ionian Islands forty years ago — may perhaps be forgiven for doubting whether the ordinary Crown •colony is much better governed by the Colonial Office than the French colony is governed by France.^ Perhaps, indeed, the reader of such books as these may be puzzled to discover why the same rule which has secured such beneficent results in the East Indies ■should have been attended with so many failures in the West Indies. It is hardly reasonable to suppose that all the ruling capacity of the British race should have been concentrated in the India Ofiice in St. James's Park, and that none of it should have been available for the Colonial Office in Downing Street. And possibly the true explanation may be found in the fact that India is large, and that the West Indies are relatively smaU. The size of India has attracted to its shores a Civil Service which has made India the home of its working life. The man who goes to India in his youth to take up the work of administration, and who continues there till age necessitates his retirement, is identified with the land in which the most important period of his life is passed. His career is in India ; his prospects of promotion are in India ; he has no hope or ambition ' In a very interesting report by in force in the British and French Mr. Austin on colonial admihistra- West Indies. The value of the *ion, which has just (1903) been report to an English reader is that published by the Government of the it represents the conclusions of a United States, the author (p. 2617 neutral writer. ■seq.') carefully examines the systems 22 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. J. outside India ; he becomes acquainted with the charac- 1856. ter, the feelings, and the wishes of the people around him ; and, if he is a good man, his whole energies are Thede- directed to promoting their welfare. The handful of ooioni'ai Englishmen, on the contrary, who are selected for the traTira^ higher posts of government in our Crown colonies, from the very nature of their appointments, can hardly iden- tify themselves with the people with whom they live. Those who have been engaged in the practical work of government in a dependency would probably share the author's view that a period of five years — usually the extreme limit for which a governor holds office — is too short a time to enable a man to ascertain what is wanted and to carry out his conclusions. But, even in those five years, the governor of a Crown colony is necessarily thinking not only of the people among whom he is living, but of the promotion that is before him. He cannot, like the Indian official, throw his whole heart into work in which he is engaged to-day, but from which he wiU certainly be removed to-morrow. He cannot be expected to feel, as the best Indian officials, have shown that they have felt, that the touching words of Euth are applicable to him also : ' Thy people are my people.' It is fair, too, to recollect that in the early days of colonial government many things were done which it is impossible to excuse. The whole of the mineral rights in Cape Breton were giA^en to the Duke of York. Vast tracts of territory in Canada were reserved for the Church. Even so lately as 1849 the whole soil of Vancouver's Island was granted to the Hudson's Bay Company.^ Perhaps, however, the history of Prince ^ Fortunately, in making this the Crown. Under the Company grant, the Government reserved the the island had made no progress, right of resumption {Hansard, vol. See the Duke of Newcastle ia cli. p. 1097), and, as a matter of fact, Hansard, vol. clxxii. p. 48. the proprietorship was resumed by THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 28 Edward Island affords a more instructive example of chap. i. the methods in which in the old days this country dealt i856. with its colonies. In 1767 ^ nearly the whole of the land in the island— 1,340,000 out of 1,500,000 acres- was disposed of in a public lottery in London in sixty- seven lots of 20,000 acres each. It was made a con- dition that each of the fortunate persons who acquired these lots should introduce one settler, and that they should pay a quit rent, varying from 2s. to 6s., for each 100 acres. Ko steps, however, were taken to see that these conditions were fulfilled. Settlers were not in- troduced ; the Government at first tacitly, and ulti- mately in express words, acquiesced in their non-intro- duction ; the claim for quib rent was not enforced ; its arrears were remitted and its amount reduced. Thus almost the whole soil of the colony was alienated to proprietors who were chiefly absentees, and who from the nature of their tenure were necessarily placed in a position of antagonism to the bona-fide settlers. The history of the island became the record of one long quarrel between the proprietary thus imposed by the Imperial Government upon the colony and the popula- tion who were their tenants ; and this quarrel was ag- gravated when representative institutions were granted to the island in 1851. The government of the colony was thenceforward in the hands of men who had little or no sympathy with absentee landlords. In 1855 the matter was brought to a crisis. The local government sent home two Acts, one imposing a rate or duty on the rent rolls of the proprietors for military expenses, and for the encouragement of education, the other giving compensation to tenants for improvements. The Imperial Government thought these Acts so bad in prin- ciple, and so defective in machinery, that it took the 1 Prince Edward Island was finally acquired by this country in 1763 at the peace of Paris. 24 THE HISTOKY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. unusual course of disallowing them both, and of inti- 1856. mating to the governor of the colony its intention to ' resist all measures of a similar character which were aimed at the spoliation of the proprietors.' The Govern- ment, however, which arrived at this decision felt that it was dangerous to postpone all remedy, and suggested that ' an amicable settlement might be effected by the lands being bought up.' The suggestion was adopted by the colony, and in April 1866 the colonial legis- lature agreed in proposing a loan of 100,000Z. to buy up the lands, and asked the Imperial Government to assist them by guaranteeing the loan. The Colonial Office assented to this course ; and in 1858 Lord Stanley, speaking as Secretary of State, asked the House of Commons to authorise him to carry out an arrangement which had been agreed to by his pre- decessor.^ The legislative mill, however, occasionally grinds only slowly ; and it was not till 1875 that the remedy which had been proposed nearly twenty years before was finally adopted. When such things were possible in colonial admi- nistration, it was certainly open to reasonable men to doubt whether the possession of colonies by the mother country either brought advantage to the colo- nies or added to the strength of the Empire ; and the doubts which were felt on the subject were perhaps the British more intense because the men who governed England hi^856.^ ii 1856 were for the most part old, and, steeped in the opinions and traditions of a previous age, were incapable of appreciating the new forces which were slowly building up the British Empire. Lord Palmers- ton, who was Prime Minister, and Lord John EusseU, Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Derby, the only other men ahve who had filled the first place in any Ministry, had ^ I have given this story almost related it to the House of Commons, in the words in which Lord Stanley Hansard, vol. el. p. 399. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 25 all been born in the eighteenth century. Three of chap. i. them had commenced their parliamentary career before 1856. the battle of Waterloo ; three of them had sat in the Cabinet which had carried the first Eeform Act ; all of them must have vividly remembered the incidents of the great struggle which had closed in 1815 ; tradition and habit had concentrated their gaze on Europe and the East ; and they hardly turned their eyes to that great and undeveloped West, where a new Anglo- Saxon dominion, in M. de TocqueviUe's striking phrase, was growing up unnoticed ; ^ and with its growth was shifting the balance of the world. Years before, indeed, a contemporary of their own, with a half glimpse at the real truth, had made the somewhat egotistical boast that he had called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old. But nothing was more certain than that the New World which Mr. Canning thought he had called into exist- ence had redressed no balance which was worth re- dressing. With his eyes, like those of Columbus, intent on the tropics, and on the ruins of a mighty empire, Mr. Canning, like the great navigator, had neglected the vigorous republic in the northern continent. Neither he nor his successors realised that it was the growth of Anglo-Saxon power in the north, and not the destruction of Latin rule in the south, which was ultimately to redress the balance of the world. If, however, the statesmen of 1856, nurtured in the traditions of a previous generation, paid too much heed to the lessons of the past, and gave too little attention to the forces which were to control the future, they might be excused for failing to foresee the causes which would ultimately bring the United States and Great Britain into closer alliance. For in the eighty years which preceded 1856 the relations between the mother ^ De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. i. p. 445. 26 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. country and her former colonies had been frequently 1856. strained; and in 1856 an unfortunate quarrel, arising out of the Crimean War,^ had led to the dismissal of our Minister from Washington, and had produced Attorney-General (Sir A. Cockbum) (p. 40), and the case against it bv Sir F. Thesiger (p. 54). For the general appreheii-sions of war which these unfortunate events excited see, inter alia, Greville, Srd Series, vol. ii. pp. 48, 49. Oddly enough, the feeling in America was intensified by the fact that an American, who was stated to have been an attache to the American Embassy, was turned back from her Majesty's Levfie because he insisted on his right to pass the Queen in a frock coat and black neckcloth. ' For anything I know,' wrote Lord Campbell, ' this may be construed into a casus belli! Life of Campbell, vol. ii. p. 345. It is pleasant for an Englishman to acknowledge that the strained relations between the two countries were ultimately made easier by an act of courtesy on the part of the United States Govern- ment. One of our ships, the Reso- lute, sent to the Arctic regions in 1852 to ascertain if any traces could be discovered of Sir John Franklin's expedition, was abandoned by her captain and crew, and later in the year picked up as a derelict by Captain Boddington, the commander of an American whaler. Our Ad- miralty waived any claim c)n the vessel, and placed her at""Captain Boddington's disposal. By a unani- mous vote, however. Congress de- cided on purchasing the vessel from Captain Boddington, on refitting her, and on presenting her to the Queen. On the 12th of December, 1856, the Resolute arrived at Spithead, under the charge of Captain Hartstein, of the United States Navy, and the Queen, with her usual good sense and good taste, went on board the vessel herself and formally received it. The facts will be found clearly stated in Hansard, vol. cxliv. p. 1948. Cf. Pari. Papers, 1857-58, vol. Ix. pp. 23-32. ^ During the Crimean War the Government decided on enlisting the services of a Foreign Legion, and they opened an office at Hali- fax in Nova Scotia, where they offered considerable attractions for recruits. They at the same time endeavoured to induce English, Scotch, and German settlers in the States to proceed to Nova Scotia and enlist. There was no question that persons, so enlisted in United States territory, would have been guilty of an offence against muni- cipal law. But the British Govern- ment seems to have concluded that, as the enlistment was not completed till after the arrival of the recruits in Nova Scotia, the letter of the law would not be broken. Mr. Cramp- ton, who was our Minister at Wash- ington, strove, in the first instance, to steer a straight course in a very difficult voyage. But some of his agents were not animated by similar scruples, and issued proclamations to the unemployed, and did other things which it is very difficult to justify. The United States Govern- ment ultimately prosecuted Hertz, one of these agents (who was after- wards admitted by our Attorney- General to be a man of no charac- ter), and Hertz, on his conviction, made a confession which directly implicated Mr. Crampton. Upon the strength of the verdict and the confession, the United States Government sent Mr. Crampton his passports. The British Ministry, happily, did not find it necessary to retaliate, and Mr. Dallas, the Minister of the United States, re- mainedinthiscountry. StatePapers, vol. xlvii. pp. 358 seq. ; and Rhodes's Hist, of the United States, vol. ii. pp. 186-188. There is a debate on the subject in Hansard (vol. cxliii. pp. 14, 120), where the British case is very temperately stated by the THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 27 serious apprehensions of warfare between the two great chap. i. branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. With this quarrel "isseT before them, and the recollection of previous dif- ferences with difficulty healed, British statesmen might be forgiven for failing to perceive that a common ancestry and a common language would ultimately draw two great kindred races together, and that the United States was a country, whose friendship would ultimately be prized in England beyond that of any other nation in the world. If, however, British statesmen and the British Their people in 1856 failed to appreciate at its true worth appreciate the value of a great colonial empire, or the rapid *£ histmy. expansion of a greater English-speaking republic, they were equally blind to the new forces which were slowly growing up in Europe. Lord Palmerston, to the end of his life, remained strangely ignorant of the causes which were drawing the German people together, and was equally uninformed of the circum- stances which were making the Prussian army the most efficient military machine in the world.^ Prussia, ' In the closing days of 1864 valeureuse resistance qu'ils avaient Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord rencontr§e dans la campagne im- Jolin Russell : ' The Prussians are provisos de 1859, proclamaient la brave and make good soldiers ; but superiority incontestable des armies all military men who have seen the autrichiennes sur TarmSe prus- Prussian aripy at its annual reviews sienne, laquelle, disaient-ils, man- of late years have unequivocally de- quaient de consistance.' And clared their opinion that the French again : ' Le gSnSral Devaux, un de would walk over it, and get without nos officiers superieurs les plus difficulty to Berlin, so old-fashioned renommfis pour la surety de sea is it in organisation and formation appreciations, etait revenu d'une and manoeuvre.' lAfe of Lord John mission en Allemagne, convaincu Russell, vol. ii. p. 401, note. This que I'armee prussienne serait battu amazing opinion, it should be recol- haut la main par l'arm6e autri- lected, was expressed only thirty chienne.' Rothan, La Politique months before Sadowa. In Lord Franqaise en 1866, pp. 59, 60, note. Palmerston's excuse it may be stated Mr. Herbert Paul has lately re- that the French, who were much minded us that two such different more deeply interested, were equally men as Lord Cowley and Mr. blind to the truth. M. Rothan Matthew Arnold were under the says : ' L'Empereur s'inclinait de- same delusion. Life of Matthew vant I'opinion de ses g6n§raux les Arnold, pp. 57, 58. The same view plus exp^riinentes, qui, frapp§s de la will be found expressed by M. 28 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. in his judgment, was a quantite negligeable ; and its 1856. troops were unequal to the task of meeting the trained battaUons of Austria, or the vast military array of France. No doubt it was difficult for a man who was old enough to recollect what France had done under the First Napoleon to estimate accurately her Theposi- position under the Third. She still retained the Francl immense advantage which her situation, her resources, and the thrift and spirit of her people conferred upon her. Her Emperor was supposed to have 550,000 armed soldiers at his disposal ; ^ and in 1856 such a force seemed large enough to carry out the projects of the highest ambition. Her ruler, in alliance with this country, had just brought the Crimean War to a successful conclusion ; and — whatever other lessons might be drawn from the struggle — it was certain that Eussia was, for the moment, exhausted by serious losses in men and treasure. Every Englishman who went to the Continent, moreover — and the invention of steam and the development of railways were multiplying the opportunities for travel — returned impressed with the many proofs which came before him of the prosperity and wealth of the French people. At every town in which he stayed, in almost every village through which he passed, something was being done for its embellish- ment or its convenience,^ by the erection of some new Guizot in Senior's Conversations. Marmora, Un peu plus de Lumih-e, But, of course, in 1866 M. Guizot pp. 31, 38. had no special means of informa- ^ See, inter alia, a paper on the tion. The ignorance, both in ' Second French Empire ' in Vitz- France and England, of the real thum, St. Petersburg and London, truth is the more amazing because vol. i. p. 139. military men in other countries ^ In 1863 Napoleon asked for a had a much clearer perception. credit of 1,000,000Z. to be expended General La Marmora, as far back on 7-ural roads, declaring, in a letter as 1861, recognised 'la grande to his Minister, that the improvement valeur intrinsique de I'arm^e of rural was of more importance Prussienne,' and in 1864 aflSrmed than the reconstruction of urban its superiority in 'beaucoup de France. De la Gorce, Histoire du choses to that of France. La Second Empire, vol. iv. p. 129. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 29 church, by the repair of some old building, or by the chap. i. promotion of some other work for the use or amuse- 185G. inent of its people. Paris, in particular, was being rapidly converted into a city of palaces ; and the Londoner who went to Paris, and who saw new boulevards, new public buildings, new opera houses, in process of formation and erection, and who returned home to his own dingy streets, which had practically been unimproved for more than forty years, indulged in the common reflection that some things were done better in France than in England, and concluded that the French were a great, wealthy, and advancing people. It is the business of statesmen to examine the growth and power of nations with an attention which ordinary travellers are not expected to bestow ; and perhaps, if British statesmen in 1856 had been able to divest themselves of the traditions in which they had been trained, or of the recollections of their youth, they might have formed very different conclusions, and adopted a very different policy from that which was pursued by Lord Palmerston and his colleagues ; for anyone who had taken the trouble to look below the surface of the stream might possibly, even in 1856, have found some reasons for doubting whether France was holding her own among the nations of the world. There was one thing in which France was being The slow steadily overtaken by other nations in the race for supe- f°^ev riority. She was not multiplying her numbers in the people, same ratio as the Germans, the Eussians, and the English. It is a broad but sufficiently accurate generalisation to say that, from 1815 to 1856, France added 20 per cent, and the United Kingdom 50 per cent, to the number of its people. And this difference was the more striking because, while in the interval the United Kingdom had sent out its surplus millions to spread her blood, her 30 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. language, her ideas in the western and southern hemi- 1856. spheres, France had despatched few emigrants from her shores, and had imported men and women of alien races to do the work which the failure of her own children has left to other hands to do. The slower growth of the French people was no new fact in history. In the early years of the eighteenth century France had three inhabitants for every one inhabitant in Great Britain ; ^ at the end of the eighteenth century she had two people alive for every person living in the United Kingdom ; at the conclusion of the nineteenth century the United Kingdom had outstripped her in the race, and had the larger population of the two countries. The in- If the growth of population was steadily increasing ofThe the relative weight of the United Kingdom compared French ^[^]^ ^j^g Weight of France, France was also being slowly deprived of another advantage. During the first half of the nineteenth century she enjoyed com- parative immunity from the crushing debt which was paralysing the efforts of her rival. It could not be said of her, as it was said of England, that she was bound over in 800,000,000Z. to keep the peace. When she entered the Crimean "War her debt was not much more than one-third of our own. The cost of the war to France closely corresponded with its cost to Great Britain. But while in this country the chief part of the cost was paid out of taxation, in France nearly the whole cost was paid out of borrowed money.^ At the close of the Crimean War, indeed, the debt of Great ^ Voltaire has noticed in the Budget speech of 1857, said that Si^cle de Louis XIV., vol. ii. p. 195, the expenditure of the three years that ' L'Angleterre, proprement dite, of war had exceeded the ex- n'est que le tiers de la France et penditure of the three preoed- qu'eUe n'avait pas la moiti6 tant ing years of peace by rather more d'argent monnayS.' than 76,000,000^., and he gave this ' It is not very easy to estimate sum as the cost of the war. He how far the Crimean War was paid further went on to show that the for by borrowing, and how far out revenue of the three years of war of revenue. Sir G. C. Lewis, in his had exceeded the revenue of the THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 31 Britain was still more than twice as large as the debt chap. i. of France ; but the disproportion was rapidly diminish- 1856. ing. During the ten years which preceded 1870 — years which, so far as Europe was concerned, were years of peace for France — the debt of France rose from 386,000,000^. to 515,000,000^. During the same ten years the debt of this country decreased from 808,000,000^. to 798,000,000/. The great catastrophe of 1870 turned in a moment a balance which was being slowly shifted ; but it was already obvious that, if the financial policy of the two countries remained un- changed, and both of them remained at peace, the debt of France, instead of being smaller, would be ultimately larger than our own. There was a third respect in which Great Britain The _ was slowly obtaining an advantage over her rival, of France. Much as her statesmen disliked the policy of expansion, there was very little doubt that the vast possessions of this country were not imposing any strain on her finances which she was unable to bear. Her great dependency in India had always paid its way, and her autonomous possessions in America and Australasia promised to be, and ultimately became, self-supporting. But France had never succeeded in making Algeria three preceding years of peace by of taxation, and only 32,000,000/. 40,000,000/., and he placed this sum out of debt. Mt: Gladstone, A as the proceeds of the additional Studi/, -p. 21. In France the cost of war taxation. From this reasoning the war is placed by M. Leroy- it would be fair to say that, while Beaulieu (Traitd de la Science the country paid 40,000,000/. of the des Finances, vol. ii. p. 366) at cost of the war out of taxation, she 1,6.38,000,000 francs, and he says paid the other 36,000,000/. out of that 1,538,000,000 francs was bor- borrowed money. See Hansard, vol. rowed, and only 100,000,000 francs cxliv. p. 639. I have, infra, p. 70, paid out of revenue. M. de la Gorce given my reasons for placing the \Histoire du Second Empire, vol. i. amount at rather under 33,000,000/. pp. 334, 411) mentions three loans, Mr. Sydney Buxton, following amounting in the aggregate to Mr. Chisholm, Report on Public In- l,500,000,francs, raised for the war. ■*" ' come and Expenditure, 1869, p. 708, Mr. Mulhall declares that the debt places the cost of the war at raised by France for the Crimean War 70,000,000/., of which he computes amounted to 93,000,000/. Cf. Life that 38,000,000/. were provided out of Prince Consort, vol. iv. p. 358. 32 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. financially independent. It was at once too far from, ' 1856." and too near to, her own shores for the purpose : too near to France to be governed autocratically as England governs India, or to' be tri^ted with the independent autonomy which she concedes to Australia; too far to be incorporated completely in the Eepublic or in the Empire. The fact that she had to control in Algeria a warlike and frequently hostile race compelled her to hold the country by a strong military force. As she had no surplus population, no considerable number of emigrants occupied the available land of the colony ; and the men who went to Algeria were either the soldiers who formed the garrison, the func- tionaries who carried on the government, or financiers who saw some opening for profitable speculation. AH of these classes had much more interest in drawing on the resources of France than in making Algeria either politically or financially independent. In the middle of the nineteenth century, indeed, -govern- ment in Algeria had not assumed the form which it bore before the twentieth century began. The necessities of the colony had compelled the French to appoint a Governor-General, who was originally a dictator ; the desire to assimilate the institutions of Algeria to those of France had led to its division in 1858 into three departments, each with a separate administration, with a prefect at its head. The ap- pointment of these prefects weakened the authority of the Governor-General, without superseding the neces- sity for a strong central authority. The Governor- General became ' a costly and useless decoration ; ' ^ and the real control was transferred to Paris. In Paris, however, nothing was known of the necessities of the colony. Eailways were sanctioned which had no ^ ' Un d^cor conteux autant qu'inutile.' Le Gouvemement de VAlgSrie, ])ar Jules Ferry. THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, 33 raison d'etre but the port which, they served ; the port chap. i. was created for the railway which was brought to it} ^ImseT The indigenous inhabitants were oppressed with regu- lations which, however suitable they might have been for France, were unsuited to Algeria, and the French were burdened with a weight which seemed intolerable. In 1864 it was stated in the French Chamber that Algeria had cost 120,000,000Z. and 150,000 hves.^ To these considerations it may be added that even The the appearances of wealth, which met the eye of the beuleTn traveller at every turn, were to some extent deceptive, ^"■eno'i ± ranee was like a rich woman who was spending British an undue proportion of her income in decking her mJnt ^" person ; England like her more prudent sister, who was grudging expenditure on jewels and dress, and de- voting her resources to the development of her estate. In the middle of the nineteenth century (]852) France had 1,863 miles of railway ; ^ in the same year the United Kingdom had 6,621 miles.'^ At the end of 1856 the mileage of railways in France had risen to 4,000,^ the mileage of railways in the United Kingdom to 8,707. And it must be recollected that, though the railways of the United Kingdom stood, compared with the railways "^ Le Gouvernement de 1'A.lgerie, from Graissessao to Beziers had been p. 27. sold for four million francs before ''Encyclopiedia Britannica, yol.i. an inch of earth had been moved, p. 564. The concession for a Grand Central ' 3,000 kilometres. De la Gorce, Railway was sold for 149 millions. Hist. du Second Empire,\o\.n.f.\Q. This policy vested the railway * Statistical abstract. system of France in six great com- ^ 6,500 kilometres. De la Gorce, panies, and these companies, having- Hist.du Second Empire,\6l.ii.^.\'2. acquired their monopolies at an ex- The considerable extension of French orbitant price, proved unable, after railways after 1852 had been the the crisis of 1858, to fulfil their fruit of a very singular arrange- obligations, and the State was com- ment. Concessions had been granted pelled to come to their assistance, freely to little companies to make L'Empire Liberal, vol. iv. p. 260. new lines, and these concessions It is easy to point out many ex- had been almost invariably sold to travagances in our own system ; the great companies at a consider- but the extravagance in France, able premium. Thus, says M. though it took its own shape, OUivier, the concession for a line was equally marked. VOL. I. D 34 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. 1856.' French ambition and British apprehen- sion. of France, as 9 stands to 4, its area, compared with that of France, stood as 3 stands to 5, its population as 3 stands to 4. The genius of one people was producing palaces and boulevards, and embellishing their cities with statues and gardens ; the genius of the other people was winning coal and iron" from the bosom of the earth and covering the land with a network of railways. The reader must not attach too much force to the foregoing considerations. It would be a grave error to sum up the capacities of a nation as a merchant tests the value of his business, by a mere estimate of its assets and its liabilities. But, on the other hand, the statesman who neglects this part of the subject ignores one of the main factors which must determine the future balance of the world. The statesman, however, of 1856 might fairly have replied that his business was with the France of his own day and not with the France of an unknown future ; and that he could not refuse to grapple with the problems of the time because the trend of events might be slowly modifying the conditions on which their solution would be determined. He could not forget that both at the end of the seventeenth century and at the end of the eighteenth century France had been the power which had practically forced Europe into war ; that on each occasion the ambitious policy of her rulers had disturbed or destroyed the balance of power; that she still retained her old advantages; that, by a strange concurrence of events, she had freed herself from the bonds imposed on her in 1815 ; that a Napoleon sat again on the Imperial throne ; that the tardy birth of an heir had given the French a new interest in his dynasty and a new pledge of its per- manence ; that the promise of the reign, ' L'Empire c'est la paix,' had been destroyed within two years of THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 35 its birth by the outbreak of the Crimean War ; that chap. i. the experiences of that war had strengthened the 1856. strength and repaired the defects of the French army ; that the French Emperor now stood at the head of a force which apparently had no equal in Europe; and that the autocratic master of 550,000 men, with his head apparently full of the traditions of the Old Empire, and of schemes for the reconstruction of modern Europe, could hardly be expected to refrain from the temptation of using his power. A British statesman might also recollect that, though France was happily our ally, though her sovereign and our Queen were paying and returning one another's visits, the Emperor had not only a cause to assert, but a defeat to avenge ; and that his armaments, both by sea and by land, proved that he was preparing the power which would enable him, should the opportunity arise, to strike a blow at this country. These considerations, which had affected public The opinion in England in 1852, and which were to move it English still more strenuously in 1860, were to some extent alliance. erroneous. The Emperor, no doubt, was not oblivious of the traditions and of the disasters of the First Empire ; but, on a calm review of the politics of Europe, he had made up his mind that the friendship of England was of paramount importance; and to this friendship he clung from the beginning to the end of his reign. True, there were ever floating in his brain ideas which were opposed to the settlement of 1815. He wished to reconstruct the map of Europe, and in reconstructing it to do something for those nationalities which the great war had done so much to repress. Poland, Italy, Eoumania, the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, these countries were associated with aspirations which he wished to encourage. He did not despair that even England, which had done so much for Belgium and B 2 36 THE HISTOJRY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. Greece, would be ready to do something to free Italy 1856. from a foreign yoke, or to restore some sort of autonomy to the Poles. The reconstruction of Europe, moreover, on the principle of uniting nationalities, seemed to promise fresh advantages to France on the north, on the east, on the south. France marched upon territories which were connected with her by language, by rehgion, and by race ; and a France enlarged by the incorporation of these kindred peoples might re- sume with confidence the position of which her dwin- dling population was slowly threatening to deprive her. No doubt the very principles which ISTapoleon was advocating involved the formation of a powerful Pied- mont on his south-eastern frontier, and the strengthen- ing of Prussia in North-eastern Europe. But the Emperor considered that, if he secured the Alps and the Ehine as the boundaries of his Empire, he could afibrd to disregard the union of Northern Italy or the consoUdation of Northern Germany. He failed to see — as European statesmen failed to see — that the forces which he was setting in motion were to prove in- capable of control, that the liberation of Northern Italy would lead to the addition of a sixth great power to the nations of the Old World ; and that the extension of Prussia was to revive the German Empire and to make Germany the chief force of continental Europe. If Napoleon was strangely blind to the consequences of his own policy, the British public and British states- men were equally ignorant of the new forces which were growing up among them, and which were to dominate the earth. The growth of the Anglo-Saxon race was the great fact in the history of the world, and men like Lord Palmerston and his colleagues had no leisure to examine the rise of the great transatlantic republic, or the expansion of the British Empire. The growth of British colonies and of British India was the THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 37 great fact in the history of England ; and statesmen on chap. i. both sides of the House of Commons regarded our i856, external possessions as a burden which had to be borne, and not as a benefit to be prized. The aspirations of the Teutonic race were the strongest force in Europe, and Lord Palmerston was regarding with ill-concealed ■contempt the country which was to unite all Germany under one flag for one cause. This ignorance, or this lack of foresight, was common both to the people generally and to the statesmen who should have been their guides. But, in dealing with questions of foreign policy, the people and their leaders were animated by different views. The The statesmen had grown up in the belief that it was the ^e^oUcy business of diplomacy to interfere in the affairs of other °l^°^' countries ; and Lord Palmerston was always ready, when vention. any country was either divided against itself or at issue with its neighbours, to proffer his advice, whether it was asked for or not. In consequence, there was hardly anything which went on in Europe in which the British Foreign Office did not attempt, to interfere. But the people were already doubting the policy of this constant intervention in disputes which did not affect their interests, and in questions which did not concern them. Though Mr. Cobden and the Manchester school of politicians had temporarily lost their influence, the policy of non-intervention, which they had preached in season and out of season, had sunk into the hearts of the nation. The people were more and more anxious that other nations should be left to manage their own concerns in their own way, and that even British interests should only be enforced when they were seriously imperilled. They objected to the em- ployment of diplomatic machinery and of the British fleet to recover every debt of 201} ' ^ See tlie phrase assigned to a British diplomatist in the Life 6f Lord ■John Russell, vol. ii. p. 56. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. 18567 If the principles of the Manchester school, so far as foreign politics were concerned, were slowly sinking The belief into the conscience of the nation, the doctrines of free trade, and trade Were almost universally accepted in political fn'protec- circles. The Conservative party, which had fought the ''°"- battle of protection, was hopelessly discredited. Tried by the test of experience, the Conservatives had proved themselves wrong. They had denounced the great Eeform Act as a revolutionary measure, which would involve the destruction of property and the overthrow of institutions ; and property was just as safe, the Crown and the House of Lords just as strong, in the fifties as in the thirties; they had denounced the repeal of the com laws as ruinous to agriculture, and in 1856 the agricultural interest was enjoying an undoubted pros- perity. They had denounced the repeal of the Navi- gation Acts as ruinous to British commerce ; and the- carrying trade of the country was increasing as it had never increased before.^ They had declared that the withdrawal of protection, the cheapening of food, and the shortening of the hours of labour would lead to a fall in wages ; and the working classes were more fully employed and more highly paid than at any previous period.^ The Conservative party had, in fact, neglected ^ Sir G. C. Lewis, in introducing the Budget of 1867, said : In order to comfort those gentlemen who some two {sic) years ago anticipated the ruin of the shipping of this country from the alteration then effected in the navigation laws, I will read to them returns of the tonnage of vessels in cargo, entered and cleared in each of the three years 185S, 1855, and 1856. They are as follows : - British Tons. Foreign Tons. Total. 1863 1855 1856 9,064,000 9,211,000 10,971,000 6,316,000 6,156,000 6,988,000 15,380,000 15,867,000 17,904,000 ; (Hansard, vol. cxliv. p. 638). Mr. Disraeli, in his Budget speech of' 1858, confessed the same thing. * In 1855 British tonnage amounted to 9,000,000 tons, and foreign to- 6,000,000 tons. In 1857 British tonnage had risen to 11,600,000 tons, and foreign to 7,400,000 tons.' Ibid.^ vol. cxlix. -p. 1269. ■•^ The Times wrote on the 31st of December, 1859 : ' It may be- doubted whether greater accumula- tions of wealth nave ever taken place in a period of ten years in any age or country; and for the first time within recent experience the reward of labour has increased more largely than the profits of capital. An unprecedented duration THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 39 the safe rule never to prophesy unless you know. They chap. i. had predicted revolution and ruin, and they found them- i856. selves inconveniently confronted with prosperity in agri- culture and commerce, and stability in politics. The great success of Sir Eobert Peel's legislation was, indeed, inducing people to believe that they had found out a new panacea for every domestic difficulty. The policy of laisser-faire, laisser-passer, which a French merchant had impressed on Colbert in the seventeenth century,^ and which Adam Smith had explained in three volumes in the eighteenth century, seemed certain to regulate, for all time, the government of England. The maximum of liberty for the individual, the minimum of interference by the State, were the expedients by which wealth could be multiplied and happiness secured. The chief work of the Legislature in the future, so it appeared, would be the removal of restrictions and not the imposition of regulations. The victory of free trade was so complete that Lord Brougham was able to say, ' "We have lived to see the day when a real genuine uncompromising protectionist could only find his proper place in one of our museums, among the relics of the ancient world or the specimens of extinct animals.' ^ Yet, at the very time at which Lord Brougham was The speaking, a keen intelligence might probably have dis- thrap-" covered ^rounds for disbelieving in the permanence "B^°^^h.mg ~ _ _ o ... reaction of the current views on foreign and domestic politics.^ against In the first place, though the creed was accepted, its ideas. of agricultural prosperity has led to ^ For the French merchant's a general advance of wages in the happy dictum see, jreierafta, Voltaire, country; and in every branch of Le Siecle de Louis XIV, vol. iii. skilled industry able workmen find p. 122, note. it in their power to command ^ Hansard, vol. clvi. p. 42. almost any price for their services." ^ Mr. Lilly has shown that In the same article it said, 'Free the late Mr. Justice Byles pre- trade is henceforth, like parliamen- dieted reaction on almost every tary representation or ministerial point. See ' A Forgotten Prophet ' responsibility, not so much a preva- in the Fortnightly Iteview, January lent opinion as an article of national 1901. faith.' 40 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. apostles were discredited. The men who had advocated ~1856. the poUcy of free bread had been the men who had been foremost in denouncing the Crimean War ; and in 1856 the country forgot the services which they had rendered, and only remembered the noble but unpopular efforts which they had made to preserve peace. And, in the next place, if the policy of laisser-passer had passed into an axiom, the policy of laisser-faire was proving impossible. The complex conditions of modern society, the aggregation of the working classes in factories and of the population in great towns, was de- manding or even necessitating an interference in the affairs of daily life which would have been thought intolerable in a preceding century. The State was already initiating the policy which was to make the Civil Service the companion of the British citizen from his cradle to his grave. It was registering his birth ; it was insisting on his vaccination ; it was helping to provide him with his education ; it was controlUng the conditions of his labour ; in the case of women and children it was prescribing the hours of their toU. If the British citizen fell ill, it was investigating the causes of his disease ; and if he died, it not only prevented his ' burial in the old family vault, but it added a new terror to death by inquiring into the amount of his estate, and appropriating a portion of it to its own purposes. It was difficult to reconcile these and other features of modern legislation with the policy of laisser- faire. The statesmen of 1856, indeed, who had been parties to this legislation, would have been unanimous in disclaiming any intention to interfere with the liberty of the subject ; they would have indignantly repudiated the suggestion that they were preparing a way for State socialism to walk in. But it was none the less true that they were finding it necessary to interfere with the liberty of the iiidividual, and to THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. 41 authorise the intervention of the State in the round of chap. i. every man's hfe. 1856. The trend of events, moreover, was in some cases falsifying the predictions of the economists. They failed either to see or to appreciate the great influence which the improvement of locomotion was exerting on the destinies of mankind. Mr. Malthus, for example, was right in concluding that, as man multiplies his kind more rapidly than the earth increases its products, the time may come when the world will be unable to support the increasing number of its people. But he failed to see that the practical significance of his de- monstration was to be almost indefinitely postponed by the new facilities which were to place the productions of the great undeveloped territories of the New World at the disposal of the thickly inhabited countries of the Old. And there was another and a deeper reason for the distrust in the economists which was about to arise. Political economy contains a profound truth — a truth which no statesman and no people can afford to neglect. But it is sometimes forgotten that it does not comprise the whole truth. Adam Smith intended that the ' Wealth of Nations ' should be read with and corrected by the ' Theory of Moral Sentiments,' and it is not his fault that posterity should have fixed their attention on the first of these works and overlooked the conclusions of the,-; second. In the middle of the nineteenth century men were discovering, or about to discover, that problems in poUtics are not to be solved like problems in mathematics, and that there is an element of uncer- tainty in the one which does not enter into the other. The philosopher in his study may find it convenient to assume that in the same circumstances men will always act in the same way ; but the statesman soon learns that on similar occasions men act in different 42 THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEABS. CHAP. I. ways, and that the same causes may lead to opposite 1856. results. In the last ten years of the eighteenth century — to take a striking example — the course of revolutionary legislation in France and the emancipation of the Eoman Catholics in Ireland led, in each case, to the multiphcation of small holdings : in the one by the com- pulsory division of estates among the children of their proprietors, in the other by the wholesale creation of freeholds for lives. But, while the subdivision of land in France imposed a restraint on the increase of the people, in Ireland it led to a rapid growth of the popu- lation. In France, a people trained in habits of thrift found in the partition of the soil a reason for deferring their marriages, or restricting the number of their children ; while in Ireland each new division of the land afforded an opportunity to the peasantry for the creation of new famiUes and for adding to the numbers of an already teeming population. The fact, however, that actual man will not always act as the economists find it convenient to assume that economical man will act, does not detract from the value of their teaching. It was their business to explain the rules which, on the whole, govern the conduct of mankind ; and exceptions to these rules no more affect the value of their doctrine than the aberra- tions of a planet from its orbit destroy the authority of the first of Kepler's laws. The astronomer showed that all planets move in an ellipse : his successors have noticed aberrations from the ellipse. Yet the eccentric motions of the planet Uranus did not prove that Kepler was wrong; they only indicated that there were external influences which interfered with the exact operation of his law. Just in the same way the fact that actual man does not follow the precise course which economical man is supposed to pursue does not prove that Adam Smith and his successors were mis- THE HISTOKY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 43 taken. It only shows that in- politics, as in mechanics, chap. i. it, is impossible wholly to disregard the human hand 1856. and the human brain, Kepler told us how the planet moves, and his demonstration is not inaccurate because it deviates from its natural course. The economist explains what man in given circumstances will do, and the explanation is none the less true because certain men in the same circumstances do not take the course which the average man may be expected to follow. It must also be admitted that there was something inconsistent in the principles and in the practice of some of the later economists. Some of them had adopted the doctrine, which Mr. Bentham had expounded, that all government is ' one vast evil,' only kept from mischief by minute regulations and constant vigilance. It would have been difficult to push the principle of laisser-faire further than this. Yet the very men who were thus denouncing the interference of the State were themselves depending on the intervention of the State to give effect to the reforms which they were advocating. They were forced to appeal to Parliament, which in their sense was the State, to remove the old restrictions which former parliaments had imposed, and to institute the .new machinery which they themselves thought necessary.^ To these general consideration^ it may be added that the economists suffered from the inability of many of their students to follow their reasoning. Economical works were to many adults what Euclid is to many boys. Some boys, indeed, almost intuitively grasp the meaning of the beautiful demonstrations which EucHd has supplied; while others — perhaps most of ' See The English Utilitarians, work of so able and ■well-known a by Sir Leslie Stephen, vol. i. p. 287, thinker that it is an instance of that and a remarkable article on the rare criticism where the commentary book in Edinburgh Jteview, No. 396, is of equal value with the text, pp. 401-403. The article is the 44 THE HISTOR:ir OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. fcliem — are never able to do more than learn a few of the propositions by heart. Some men, in the same way, have no difficulty in assimilating the reasoning of the older economists, while others — many others — have an inherent incapacity for either following or under- standing it. Their difficulty is probably increased by the fact that the conclusions of the economist seem to them opposed to their own experience. How could an ordinary country gentleman, in the middle of the nine- teenth century, who knew that all his own land was let, and that aU the land in his neighbourhood was let, be expected to believe that the worst land paid no rent ? He might find it difficult to answer Mr. Eicardo's reasoning, but he dismissed it as opposed to his OAvn experience. He was very much like the teacher in Australia who taught his pupils that the world was round because it was so described in the books, but who, as he had sailed all the way from England, knew — from his own observation — that the books were wrong, and that the world was fiat. It is not surprising that men of whom the country gentleman was a type were a little impatient with the economists. The fact is that the writings of the later economists had much the same effect on their readers as, in Mr. Disraeli's delightful romance, they had on Popanilla's fellow-islanders. They were bored by reasoning which they could not answer and which they did not understand ; and, just as Popanilla's com- patriots settled the question by turning the philosopher out of the Isle of Fantaisie, so the contemporaries of the utilitarian school were ready to solve the difficulty by banishing political economy to the planets. It so happened, moreover, that, at the very time at which Lord Brougham was proclaiming that the victory of free trade was complete, and that other men were declaring that economists for the future would govern o THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-PIVE YEARS. 45 the world, a different set of teachers were gaining the chap. i. ear of the rising generation and proclaiming an ojaposite i856. doctrine. For the higher literature of the middle of the nineteenth century contained a passionate protest against the doctrines of the Westminster school, and against the deductions which public men were drawing from its conclusions. Nothing is more difficult than to give a correct Theiitera- appreciation of contemporary hterature. The best thrnine- contemporary critics are constantly wronsf. In his t^enth . '■ •' _ J n century. own mterest every publisher endeavours to select the men who seem qualified by their attainments and their judgment to pronounce a useful opinion on the manu- scripts submitted to him for publication. Yet the mistakes which have been, and are being, made by professional readers suggest the consideration whether the publisher would not do as well if he trusted to lot instead of to criticism. And the professional readers may at least claim that, if they err, they err with men of still greater eminence. Lord Macaulay was the most omnivorous reader, and one of the most acute critics, of his generation ; yet Lord Macaulay, writing in 1850,^ declared that it was ' odd that the last twenty-five years, which have witnessed the greatest progress ever made in physical science — the greatest victories ever achieved by man over matter — should have produced hardly a volume that will be remembered in 1900.' Mr. Carlyle's position in literature was almost equal to that of Lord Macaulay, and Mr. Carlyle, writing in 1865, could say of people flying oflF into literature, that they will ' mainly waste themselves in that inane region, fallen so inane in our mad era.' " In the twenty-five years which Lord ' Trevelyan's Macaulay, vol. ii. enough, exactly endorsing, at any p. 254. The TYtobs said in a leading rate so far as poetry is concerned, article (4th of February, 1858) : Lord Macaulay s twenty-five years. 'Thisperiodof literature [the period ^ Carlyle's Misc. Essays, -vol. \i. of metrical writers] ended with the p. 364. first quarter of the century ' — oddly 46 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. Macaulay thus dismissed, the world of history had been 1856. enriched by the writings of Mr. Hallam, Mr. Grote, Dean Milman, Mr. Stubbs, Dr. Arnold, Mr. Prescott, and by Lord Macaulay's owa earlier volumes. Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Newman, and Mr. Euskin had already pubhshed the books by which they will be chiefly remembered. In poetry, Mr. Tennyson had given us much of his choicest work, and was on the eve of printing ' In Memoriam.' Fiction, of which Lord Macaulay himself was so great an admirer, had produced (without reckoning Scott's later works) Mrs. Gaskell, Lord Lytton, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Peacock, the Bronte sisters, Mr. Dickens, and Mr. Thackeray. Mr. Carlyle's mad era of inane literature was adding to these great names those of George Eliot, Mr. Buckle, Mr. Froude, Mr. Matthew Arnold, and Mr. Darwin. The revolt It would, in One sense, be of interest to give an the'econo- accouut of the productions of these great writers, and mists in ^q attempt to estimate their position in the history of literature. ^. •■ti/.it f • • universal literature ; but it is doubtful how far it is reasonable to introduce a review of literature into the history of a nation. The historian apparently ought to discriminate between the literature which merely charms the sense or satisfies the intellect, and the literature which influences thought and consequently helps to shape a nation's policy and destiny. With the first he has little or no concern ; with the second he ought to be as familiar as he is with the dry bones of statistics and blue-books which it is his business to cover with the living flesh of history. Instead, then, of attempting any elaborate review of the literature of the period, this narrative wiU occupy itself with the works of those writers, or, rather, with passages from their works, which afiected the thought of the generation that was growing up to manhood. Four men there were in the middle of the THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 47 century whose names stand out, if not as the greatest chap. i. authors, at any rate as among the greatest teachers 1856. of their time. These four men — Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Euskin, Mr. Tennyson, and Mr. Darwin— exerted an influence on the minds of the generation in which they wrote which exceeded that of their other contem- poraries. They all of them had, or fancied they had, a message to deliver ; and they delivered it in accents which attracted as much as the writings of the economists repelled. And the message which these teachers delivered was in each case opposed to the teachings of the economists. ' Yea, they thought scorn of that pleasant land,' the Utopia of the economists' imagining, where a population freed from all external control were to conduct their own affairs and promote their own industries free from the interference of the State and the tax gatherer, and subject only to the eternal laws of competition and supply and demand ; where each nation, bent on exchanging its own produce for that of its neighbours, was to supersede the rivalry of war by the rivalry of trade, where the lion was to lie down with the lamb, the hon's teeth having, in the first instance, been extracted by universal disarma- ment. Mr. Carlyle, in point of time, was the first of Mr. these teachers. His writings are an impassioned protest ^r.^''^^' against the doctriue of laisser-faire and laisser-passer. Euskin, With him political economy was ' the dismal science.' Tennyson. ' Pig philosophy ' was the term which he thought fit to apply to Mr. Cobden's teaching. 'Moral evil is unattainability of pig- wash; moral good, attainability of ditto.' That was his description of the objects of free trade. The condition of the people problem was, in his judgment, the one domestic question worth solution ; and it was to be solved, not by a policy of laisser-faire, not by a policy of cheap bread, but by 48 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. the direct interference of the State. If statesmen could not improve the condition of the lower orders, they could at least ' draw them out in line and openly shoot them with grape.' ^ In Mr. Carlyle's judgment, the cause of the suffering condition into which the working classes had fallen was' the fierce competition which was degrading the rate of wages, and he had consequently little sympathy either with the laws of supply and demand which the economists were formulating or with the great pro- ducing classes who were unconsciously carrying them out. Mr. Tennyson, whose influence was eventually to become greater than Mr. Carlyle's, had the same dislike of trade and of the men who were pursuing it. Who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word ? With him the tradesman is — or- The smooth-faced, snub-nosed rogue, The broad-brimm'd hawker of holy things. Whose ear is cramm'd with his cotton, and rings Even in dreams to the chink of his pence. But Mr. Euskin is the more consistent opponent of the teachings of political economy. It was natural that a man endowed with Mr. Euskin's tastes and principles should find much to condemn in the life around him. He was seeking the beautiful, and cheap l)uildings and smoky factories were making life hideous. He was longing for repose, and the railroad was threading its way through secluded valleys and bring- ing noise where there had previously been quiet. He was searching for perfect workmanship, and the pres- sure of competition was flooding the world with cheap cottons, cheap houses, cheap crockery. Confronted ' 'PtovlAq, Carlyle's Life in London, our sport in shooting babies instead vol. ii. p. 337. Compare Mr. Ruskin's of rabbits ; ' and see Mr. Frederic suggestion mFors Clavigera, that we Harrison's Suskin, p. 193. should remedy some ills ' by taking THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 49 with these evils, he set himself to examine the system chap. i. under which they were possible. The times — so he 1856. concluded — were out of joint; and no remedy would be forthcoming ' until this disgusting nineteenth century has — I cannot say breathed, but steamed its last.' ^ At one time Mr. Ruskin seems to have concluded that the evils which he deplored were due to the dis- regard of the teachings of the economists ; but he soon persuaded himself that the economists themselves were responsible for the state of things which he deplored. The professors, so he thought, were ignorant of their trade,^ and he gradually decided to devote the remainder of his life to teaching them the elementary principles of their own profession. A great strike in the building trade afforded him a text, and he took up his parable in the pages of the ' Cornhill Magazine,' which at that time was edited by Mr. Thackeray. His crude and novel ideas found at first little favour with the general pubhc ; and Mr. Thackeray, alarmed at the universal condemnation, stopped the series of articles which Mr. Euskin was contributing. They became, however, the foundation of ' Unto this Last,' a book which Mr, Euskin himself thought the best — that is to say, the truest — thing that he had ever written, and which a competent critic pronounced in 1895 ' the most original and creative work in pure literature since " Sartor Eesartus." ' ^ The ideas which Mr. Euskin thus expressed he afterwards developed in ' Fors Clavigera,' ' Time and Tide,' and other writings. In these, if he did not succeed in reconstructing a science, he showed ^ Oollingwood, Life of John ' Mr. Euskin himself described Huskin, vol. i. p. 126. these essays as ' the truest, lightest ^ Half in fun, half in earnest, he worded, and most serviceable things told Mr. Carlyle in 1855 that his I have, ever written.' Of. Hobson's studies in political economy induced Huskin, p. 42 ; Harrison's Sitskin, him to think that nobody knows p. 91 ; and Mr. Frederic Harrison's anything about it. CoUingwood, article in the Nineteenth Century, life of John Buskin, vol. i. p. 194. October 1895, p. 574. VOL. I. E 50 THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. liimself at complete variance with all the teachers of 1856. political economy. Mr. Euskin's faith was so pure, his aspirations so high, and the sacrifices which he made were so great, that the critic who has a heart hesitates to condemn a teaching which the critic who has a head finds it impossible to defend. If Mr. Euskin could have had his way, modern England would have been deprived of the advantages with which industry and invention have endowed her ; and the activity of the Western world would have been replaced by the torpor of the East. This is not the place, however, seriously to consider Mr. Euskin's dislike of machinery or his denunciation of competition, usury, and profit— :to examine his argu- ment that the rate of wages depended on custom and good feeling, and that, the final outcome of wealth being the production of human beings, no one should be allowed to marry without the permission of the State. But it may be worth while to point out that in these and other opinions Mr. Euskin was far less accurate than the writers whom he was condemning. The economist only pretended to claim that, in the great majority of cases, men are moved by motives of self-interest. Mr. Euskin held that, in many cases, good men were moved by affection and feeling. The economist had created the economical man, the average specimen of his race. Mr. Euskin tried to supplant him with an ideal man, who, whatever other attributes he may have had, was not an average specimen either of his age or of any age. In truth, Mr. Euskin's wish that men's actions should be determined on altruistic grounds could not alter the fact that, in the great majority of cases, men's actions are determined by selfish considera- tions. It may be a very good thing to argue that com- petition is a law of death, that usury is wrong, and that the rate of wages should not depend on the laws of THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 51 supply and demand ; but, as a matter of fact, competi- chap, l tion lives, interest is paid and received, and men give ^isseT' their workpeople the wages for which they can obtain their labour. Mr. Euskin, in fact, mistook the whole purpose and functions of political economy. He was the preacher who tried to teach men how they should behave ; while the economist was the interpreter who tried to explain how men did behave. It was not, however, only on the strict conclusions The of political economy that the teachers differed from the govern-" ■economists. They differed still more widelv from the ™entin. . , . culeated Westminster school, which comprised the chief of by these the economists, in the whole theory of government. With the Westminster school representative institutions were the end, their perfection the aim, of statesmanship. With Mr. Carlyle parliamentary tongue talk was the idlest waste of time that had yet been invented ; the extension of the franchise was shooting Niagara ; and the Legislature which gave votes to every householder ■should proceed to entrust them to horses. '^ Mr. Tenny- son was a little more sober in his views of government than Mr. Carlyle. He saw that the Throne should be broad-based on a people's will ; he wished the represen- tatives of the people to set the bounds of freedom wider yet ; but, though he could thus write of constitutional government in language which may be quoted and ad- mired when constitutional government has ceased to be, he had no sympathy with its machinery. His candidate for parliamentary honours made the rotten hustings shake to his brazen lies to gain a wretched vote.^ The fact was that Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Carlyle, like Mr. Euskin, had little sympathy with the middle ■classes, to whom the Eeform Act of 1832 had entrusted ^ ' Divine commandment to vote : Miscellaneous Essays, vol. vi. Manhood Suffrage (Horsehood, Dog- p. 342. hood ditto not yet treated -of),* ^ Maud, Part I. vi. B 2 52 THE HISTOKY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. CHAP. I. 1856. Mr. Disraeli. the suffrage ; and both thought that the ascendency of trade had been possible only through the culpable neglect of their duty by the upper classes. Those old pheasant lords, Those partridge breeders of a thousand years, Who had mildew'd in their thousands doing nothing Since Egbert.' And both considered that the true remedy for this state of things lay in entrusting the power of govern- ment to some strong man. Ah, God ! for a man with heart, head, hand, Like some of the simple great ones gone For ever and ever by. One still strong man in a blatant land, Whatever they call him, what care I ? Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, one Who can rule and dare not lie.^ The hero, in Mr. Carlyle's eyes, was the chief factor in every calling. His political heroes were, without exception, men associated with strong action and arbi- trary government : Cromwell, not Hampden ; Napoleon,, not "Washington. One man there was in the House of Commons who. certainly at the bottom of his heart shared these opinions. Mr. Disraeli's career affords a record of in- consistencies ; and, perhaps, among the many incon- sistencies to which he was driven by opportunism^ nothing is more remarkable than that the statesman,, who played on the House of Commons as a skilfuL fiddler plays on his instrument, in his secret heart felt contempt for parliamentary government. The Eevolu- tion of 1688, in Mr. Disraeli's judgment, had given us a Venetian constitution, and had converted the 1 Aylmer's Field. How exactly expanding, Europe ? . . . Where- tliia compares with Mr. Carlyle : are they ? Preserving their game.'' ' Alas, where are the Hengists and Misc. Essays, vol. vi. p. 420. Alarics of our still-glowing, still- ' Maud. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 53 sovereign of England into a Venetian doge.^ The gen- chap. i. tlemen of England on the one hand, and the labouring 1856, classes on the other, had been swamped by the weight of the ten-pound householders ; and this result, Mr. Disraeli agreed with Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Tennyson in thinking, had .been largely due to the neglect of their duty by the country gentlemen. The gentlemen of England, from Mr. Disraeli's standpoint, had the opportunity of placing themselves at the head of a counter-revolution, and instead of doing so they were, like Lord Marney, pulling down their cottages, and eloquent on the many advantages which a labourer could command for him- self and his family on a wage of eight shillings a week.^ Probably enough has now been written to show that the ideas of government which were being expressed in the highest literature differed as widely from the ideas which the reformers were advocating in the House of Commons, and the Westminster school of economists in their writings, as the political economy of Mr. Euskin differed from the political economy of Mr, Mill. It was not only in their ideas of what a government should be that this distinction existed. They differed still more widely as to what a govern- ment should do. The economist wished that the Government should pursue a policy of economy and laisser-faire at home ; a little weary of the burden of empire, he desired to contract his responsibilities abroad ; he was in favour of pursuing a policy of The 1 rn • p f • • eeono- non-mtervention m the anairs ot foreign nations ; or, mists if he intervened at all in such matters, to exert his ^^ftere^ moral influence in favour of those nations which were con- , . -, ■. trasted. struggling for the autonomous institutions which he himself enjoyed. Above all, peace — peace almost at any price — was the true interest of the British people. War, in addition to, the direct evils which it inflicted 1 See Sybil, ch. iii. • ' Ibid., ch. xii. 54 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. Oil humanity, was an unprofitable waste of energy. It involved the destruction instead of the accumulation of wealth. The message which Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Tennyson were delivering was almost the exact opposite to this. With a disinclination or a dislike to much that was inseparable from parliamentary government, with a preference for the ' one strong man,' or the hero, as Mr. Oarlyle would have called him, they looked forward, as Mr. Euskin afterwards looked forward, to the increased intervention of the State ; ^ and they were impressed with the external responsibilities of empire. It followed, as the corollary of these opinions, that the policy of economy and of peace at any price had no attraction for these writers. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, was indignant with the manner in which continental armies were levied and employed. But his whole teaching — his admiration of Frederick and Cromwell — inspired a trust in the strong man, who was not over-scrupulous ill the shedding of human blood for a cause in which he believed. Mr. Tennyson, in ' Maud ' — a poem which, it is fair to recoUect, was written at a time when its author, like his fellow countrymen, was carried ofi" his feet by the exciting thrill of a great war — goes even further : Why do they prate of the blessings of peace ? We have made them a curse. Is it peace or war ? Better, war ! loud war by land and by sea, War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. In advocating war, as occasionally preferable to peace, these men had no sympathy with the desire ' I have desired to burden my much opposed to Mr. Herbert narrative with as little detail as Spencer as in other respects they possible, or I ou^ht perhaps to have were opposed to Mr. Bentham and added that, in this respect, Mr. Car- Mr. John S. Mill, lyle and Mr. Raskin were just as THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. 55 which Liberal politicians were feeling for redressing chap. i. some of the worst evils under which oppressed races were 1856. suffering. War was to be waged in the interests of the British Empire; and subject nationalities, struggling for their independence, were no more to be considered than the despots who were oppressing them. Shall I weep if a Poland fall ? Shall I shriek if a Hungary fail ? Or an infant civilisation be ruled with rod or with knout ? I have not made the world, and He that made it will guide. How different from the spirit which a quarter of a century before inspired Lord Byron in the Isles of Greece, or Mr. OampbeU in Navarino, or which finds expression in the famous verse : And Freedom shriek 'd — as Kosciusko fell ! Mr. Carlyle went even farther. With him slavery was one of the last evils in the world which required a remedy.^ Liberated slaves were among the last people who deserved consideration. The governor who broke the law to hang their leader, the officers who flogged and shot the negroes without the formality of a trial, were the heroes whom Mr. Carlyle undertook to defend in his old age. Inferior races were to be coerced into submission — legally, if possible, but, at any rate, to be coerced. While, then, in the middle of the nineteenth century, statesmen like Lord Brougham had made up their mind that political economy, in one shape or another, must govern the world, the teachers, Mr. Car- lyle, Mr. Tennyson, and Mr. Euskin, had been or were engaged in denouncing the opinions of the economists ; and while the economists, if they con- cerned themselves at all with affairs of other nations, gave their moral support to subject nationalities and ^ ' To me individually the nig- in the world, but among the least gar's case was not the most pressing so.' Misc. Essays, vol. vi. p. 345. 56 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEABS. CHAP. I. oppressed races, the greatest of the teachers were 1856. absolutely indifferent to the servitude of the negro or the subjection of the Pole. How great was the change of thought which was thus effected wiU be seen if the language of the "West- minster school is compared with the opinions of the teachers. With the "Westminster school representative institutions were the universal panacea for misgovern- ment; free trade and competition for the poverty of the multitude. The country, according to the philo- sophers, should rigidly abstain from aU intervention in the affairs of foreign nations ; and reduce, as far as it was able, the unfortunate responsibilities which its external dominion involved. Taxation was to be evenly adjusted, and taxation was, above all things, to be kept low. So far from the expansion of the people being desirable, that nation was the happiest which approached most nearly the stationary state where every man and woman married, and each married couple had two, and only two, children to carry on the fortunes of the family in another generation. Mr. Tennyson's, like Mr. Carlyle's, writings contain a passionate denunciation of all these views. The rotten hustings is to be superseded by the strong man ; the tradesman who, according to one school, was to re- generate the world, becomes, in the other, the broad- brimmed hawker whose ear is crammed with his cotton. War — loud war by land and sea — is preferable to the peace which competition is allowing a harried land ; and, so far from a stationary state being a happy one, England's chief claim is that she has founded many a mighty state, and the poet prays that she may not fail through any craven fear of greatness. Eead the writings of the Westminster school, and you will find the key to much in British history from 1830 to 1860. Eead the writings of Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Carlyle, and THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 57 you will find the key to much that took place in the chap. i. last forty years of the nineteenth century. ~1856. It has not perhaps been generally noticed that the arguments which Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Carlyle thus used were reinforced by the investigations of another great man working in another field. Perhaps of all the men, who influenced thought in the nineteenth century, no one made so profound an impression upon it as Mr. Darwin. The effect of his writings on the religious Mr. views of his age must be reserved for treatment in another chapter. Their effect on its politics must claim attention here. In one sense, no doubt, Mr. Darwin had no new gospel to deliver. The idea of evolution was in the air before his great work oh the ' Origin of Species ' made it almost universally familiar. But, until Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace published the results of their investigations, no intelligent explanation of the facts which had puzzled and baffled previous in- quirers had been offered. Mr. Darwin provided the world of science with the key which promised to unlock the existing mystery. He gave them the working hypo- thesis of which they were in sore need ; and, though he left much unexplained and much unaccounted for, he pointed out the way in which his followers should travel, and supplied them with new light to guide them , on their journey. The majority of his unscientific readers, indeed, probably understood only imperfectly his reasoning. But there were certain conclusions which found expression in certain phrases which were readily adopted by them. Life — so they gathered from his teaching— involved one prolonged struggle for existence, in which the weaker types succumbed and the stronger or fitter types survived. The disappearance of the unfit thus became part of the universal law of nature, or, as religious people who accepted the new teaching taught, the consequence of the predetermined design of 58 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. God. Evolution was the method by which the Creator himself was working towards perfection ; and the dis- appearance of the unfit was a consummation to be desired, not a catastrophe to be feared. And this doctrine was applicable not merely to the lower forms of life, it applied to the noblest creature of all — to man himself. For man, who was but the highest type which evolution had brought about, was engaged in the same struggle for existence as other animals. It was true of him, as it was true of the prehistoric forms whose fossils could still be found in some of the earlier life- bearing rocks, that the fitter would survive; it was even the will of God that the less fit should perish. If tliis was the universal rule of nature, the deliberate design of God himself, what mattered it that the Maori in JSTew Zealand or the Indian in the United States was disappearing before the advance of a higher type ? What mattered it if tens of thousands of negroes perished in mid-Atlantic, if the survivors of these wretched people produced a little more sugar for superior races to consume, or a little cheaper cotton for superior races to weave into cloth ? Everything — so evolution taught — was working for the ultimate im- provement of the human family, and the disappearance or servitude of the inferior races was only part of the great scheme of nature which had been slowly elabo- rated since the creation of the world. In this description of some of the most prominent influences which were affecting poUtical thought in the middle of the nineteenth century, attention has been purposely concentrated on the writings of the greatest men, and the works of inferior or less influential authors have been left unnoticed. But it must be recollected that the language which Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Tennyson were using was at the time emphasised by the teachings of other writers, who were doing much to inspire the THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 59 rising generation with pride in their country's growth chap. r. and confidence in their country's future. Eor the nine- 1856. teenth century saw the production to an extraordinary Tiie degree of historical literature. History, in the modern of the sense of the word, was late in making its appearance "^"'"^"y- on English soil. From the days of the old chroniclers to the days of Hume no Englishman had attempted to trace the story of the English race. Men like Bacon and Clarendon had, indeed, done something to illustrate particular periods of English history. Sir W. Ealeigh had filled a wider canvas with an account of the history of the world. But, so lately as the middle of the eighteenth century, Voltaire remarked that it had been left to a Frenchman, M. Eapin, to write the only good History of England. The same thing could not "have been said a few years afterwards, when Mr. Hume published the narrative which for a hundred years was to hold its own as the best account of the growth of modern England. In the hundred years which followed Mr. Hume his example was widely imitated. Mr. Gibbon, at the commencement of it, published the great work which alone among modern histories ranks with the masterpieces of Greece and Rome. Thenceforward more and more attention was paid to historical literature, till the reign of Victoria saw a succession of works which have given the British people an increased familiarity with their own annals and with the annals of other nations. It is a mistake to suppose that these works were solely due to the individual tastes and pursuits of their authors. Literature, like everything else, is the creation of the age in which it is produced ; and men write to satisfy the desires of those who read or to circulate the thoughts of the highest thinkers of their time. It was no mere accident that the two chief historians whom the United States have produced should have devoted 60 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. their attention to the acquisition of the Spanish Empire 1856. in the New World and the collapse of the Spanish Empire in the Old. The episodes of European history which they selected for illustration were precisely those which would appeal to every cultured American who approved the Louisiana purchase and the Monroe doctrine. Again, it was no mere accident that, at a time when reform was occupying the minds of states- men, Mr. Hallam should have related the constitutional development of England from the days of Henry VII. to the days of George III. It was obviously his in- tention to show that the evolution of the Constitution, which was being effected in his own time, had pro- ceeded through the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth century, and had only been interrupted — if it were interrupted-^ at the period at which he drew his narra- tive to a close. In the same way it was no mere accident which induced Mr. Grote and Dr. Thirlwall to trace the story of Ancient Greece, or Dr. Arnold and Mr. Merivale to relate the history of Eome. They were appealing to the citizens of a mighty and a growing empire, and they wanted to hold out to their readers the examples and the warnings which could be gathered from the records of mighty empires of the ancient world. In fact, when Loitl Bolingbroke said that history was philosophy teaching by examples, he intended to enforce some such conclusion as that which has been expressed in the preceding paragraph. The numerous works which were published in the middle of the nine- teenth century on our own history, or on isolated portions of the nation's story, are an attempt to supply a nation proud of its growth and its extent with a knowledge of the manner in which that empire had been acquired and maintained. Cynical critics naay declare that Lord Macaulay produced a Whig tract, Mr. Froude THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 61 an apology for autocracy^ Mr. Green some detached chap. i. essays oii English history and literature, or, to descend 1856. to a lower example, that Sir Archibald Alison published twenty volumes to prove that Providence was on the side of the Tories. But the impartial reader will admit that all these writers are inspired with the same faith in the English race, the same appreciation of England's greatness, the same belief in England's destinj'-. They are conscious that they are dealing with the story of a great nation, and the knowledge that they are doing so is reflected in their narratives. Thus the historians, in their turn, were doing much to emphasise the protest which the poets and teachers were raising against the doctrine of the economists. Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Tennyson, and Mr. Euskin were de- nouncing the argument that the future of the nation depended on the competition of traders. They were protesting against the doctrine that peace at any price was preferable to war ; while the historians were showing that England had been built up hj other methods, and that it was the mission of a great empire, in Virgil's language, to subdue the proud as well as to spare the weak. Mr. Darwin was even carrying the doctrine farther ; for, without thinking of its influence on politics, he was showing that the law of nature insisted that the weak should give way to the strong, and that the heritage of the world was consequently allotted to the governing and conquering races. The writings of these men were on the table of every educated householder ; they were greedily devoured by the more intellectual representatives of the rising generation ; their teaching was reproduced for a less intellectual public by the daily newspapers. They were no more proclaiming the whole truth than the econo- mists themselves; but the half truth on which they were insisting was welcome to a generation which was 62 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. I. out of patience with the doctrine of laisser-faire, and 1856. which was not wholly reconciled to the new doctrine of non-intervention in Continental politics, for it taught them that their country was not merely a huge shop, but that she was also a great nation — a nation with a past to remember, and with a destiny to fulfil. CHAPTER II. THE FALL OF LOKD PALMEKSTON. At the commencement of the Session of 1857, Lord chap. ii. Palmerston had held the first place in the Administra- "TsSvi^ tion for two years. He had been originally entrusted The with power to bring the war with Eussia — for which he p?l''T had been so largely responsible — to a satisfactory con- Paimeis- clusion; and, until peace was signed, it had been 1857" recognised that he should not be disturbed. The peace of Paris, however, had necessarily terminated this under- standing; and in the beginning of 1857 statesmen out of office were freely speculating on the probability of a change of ministry.^ Lord Palmerston's age alone furnished an ample basis for this speculation ; for, in the middle of the nineteenth century, people had not become accustomed to octogenarian or even septuagenarian Prime Ministers. Prom the fall of the Duke of Newcastle in 1762 to the appointment of Lord Aberdeen in 1852, only three men, all of whom were peers,^ who had passed the age of sixty had held the first place in any ministry, and it was almost universally concluded that a man of advanced years could not stand the double strain attaching to the rule of the Cabinet and the lead of the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston's friends ' The Times said, in its review of ' The Duke of Portland in his 1867 (Ist of January, 1868): 'States- second Ministry, the Duke of Wel- men out of office were sanguine in lington in the closing months of his their expectation of a change of Ministry, and Lord Grey. Ministry.' 64 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. II. and supporters shared this feeUng. His friends thought 1857. that he was showing signs of infirmity, which justified the anxiety about him that Lady Palmerston was known to feel.^ His supporters noticed that he was displaying some of the deficiencies of memory and temper which are the occasional accompaniments of old age. On the first night of the Session he contradicted Mr. Disraeli on a matter of fact ; a week afterwards he had to explain away his contradiction ; and two days later still he had to explain his explanation ; and his speeches on all three occasions were thought to be marked by an ' insolence of manner ' ^ which might have been justi- fied if he had been right, but which was less excusable when he was wrong. So far as internal politics were concerned, indeed, there was nothing looming on the immediate horizon which threatened to disturb the future of the Ministry. The demand for organic reform, which had been revived in the lean years succeeding the Irish famine, had subsided in the fatter years which had followed in the early fifties. Trade was improving, agriculture was thriving, and an improving trade and a thriving agriculture were increasing the demand for labour, and tending to raise the rate of wages. Free trade had made Great Britain a cheaper and happier country to live in ; and amid their improved surroundings ^ For Lord Palmerston's health merston denied the existence of in 1857, cf. Oreville, 3rd Series, this treaty ; but, on the 10th of vol. ii. pp. 85, 86, and Vitzthum, February, he admitted that a con- St. Petersburg and London, toI. i. vention to this effect had been pre- P- 206. pared, though he alleged that it had * The phrase is Greville's, vol. ii. not been signed. On the 12th he p. 85. Mr. Disraeli, in the debate had to admit that the convention had on the Address, alleged that a secret been signed. Hansard, \ol. cxliv. treaty had been concluded during pp. 110, 164, 470, 535. Grevillo the Crimean War, at the instance says of this incident : ' He [Lord of this country, between France Palmerston] is not gualts erat ; and and Austria, in which, in return for I am disposed to believe that he is aid in the Crimea, France had about to begin breaking.' Grevilk, agreed to guarantee to Austria her vol. ii. p. 86. possessions in Italy. Lord Pal- THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 65 the people displayed no general desire for an extended chap. ii. suffrage. Between 1840 and 1850 the six points of 1857. the people's Charter had aroused enthusiasm among the many, and had excited alarm among the few. Between 1850 and 1860 the six points had almost passed out of the range of practical politics, and only provoked a good-humoured smile. In external politics there was more reason for fear. The mass of the people, indeed, paid little heed to foreign policy, but the state of our relations with foreign powers was renewing the distrust which most politicians felt in the foreign policy of the Prime Minister, by reminding them of the unrest which had prevailed abroad when he had held the seals of the Foreign OiSce under Lord Melbourne and under Lord John Eussell. A war in which this country was not entirely in the right was being conducted in Persia ; ^ and a war, in which large sections of the House of Commons thought her distinctly in the wrong, was about to be undertaken in China. In common with France, we had addressed written remonstrances to the Court of Naples, which had been followed up by the with- drawal of our representative at th'at Court ; and in 1856, our Minister at "Washington had been abruptly dismissed from the United States.^ Thus the conclusion of the peace of Paris had been followed by war with Persia, by impending war with China, by the suspension of diplomatic relations with a small Italian state, and the dismissal of our representative from the great trans- atlantic i-epublic. Sober citizens, intent on promoting their business or on pushing their trade, might be pardoned for thinking that the excessive activity of the British Foreign Office was as unnec^essary as it was unwise. ' ^ The history of this war will be thought it necessary to relate it found in Hist, of England, vol. vi. again. p. 265 seg. I have not, therefore, ^ See ante, p. 26, note. VOL. I. F 66 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. II. The electricity which was disturbing the atmo- 1857. sphere of the Foreign Office was aiFecting opinion in the The state House of Commons, and in that House Lord Palmerston of parties, q^^i^ j^q^; j.g2y. ^^ an assured majority. The Parliament of 1852, which stiU survived in 1857, had been elected under Lord Derby's auspices and contained a strong and coherent Conservative minority. The strength of this minority made it difficult for any ministry to stand which did not combine in its ranks aU the ele- ments which had temporarily coalesced to overthrow Lord Derby in 1852. It was an appreciation of this fact which had suggested the formation of the Coalition Ministry of Lord Aberdeen. But this Grovernment had been wrecked, after two years of office, on the rocks of the Eussian "War, and some of its ablest members — ^hke Mr. Gladstone and Sir James Graham — had recrossed the floor of the House and were coquetting with the Conservative leader,^ or, like Lord John EusseU, were sulking in a solitary tent on a Liberal bench. These defections, if they had been alone, might have imperilled the continuance of Lord Palmerston's Ministry ; and, unhappily for Lord Palmerston, he had little sympathy with the small but powerful body of men who had done so much by their advocacy to secure the country the blessing of cheap bread, and who were doing so much to awaken it to the dangers of interference in the affairs of other nations. Lord Palmerston, in short, could hardly hope to stand, unless he succeeded in combining in his support aU sections of the so-called Liberal party ; and between him and Mr. Cobden, for example, there was a wider gulf fixed than that which separated him from the Conservatives on the front Opposition bench. ^ Until Mr. Morley's Life of between Lord Derby and Mr. Glad- Gladstone was published, few people stone at the beginning of 1867. knew how close were the relations See book iv. chap. viii. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 67 The Session had hardly begun before the dissentient chap. ir. Liberals found an opportunity for displaying their 1857. hostility to the Minister. The financial arrangements of the year were of exceptional importance. The war with Russia was over ; but the taxation which the war had necessitated remained.^ It was everywhere felt that the first business of Parliament was the relief of the taxpayer, and that the revision of the financial system was its first duty to discharge. In 1857, it must be recollected, the country had not The forgotten the brilliant prospects which had been held ovists. out to it by the Budget of 1853. In renewing the income tax in that year, and in extending its operation to Ireland and to incomes of 100^. a year, Mr. Gladstone ^- had made provision for its reduction in 1855 to 60?., in 1857 to 5(i., and for its final abolition in 1860, when the long annuities, as they were called, or a temporary debt imposing a charge of more than 2,000,000^. a year, expired. In the same Budget he had proposed to provide for the gradual reduction of the tea duties from 2s. 2^d. to Is. per pound.^ The nation had there- fore concluded from Mr. Gladstone's sanguine rhetoric — and Mr. Gladstone never spoke with more eifect than in proposing the Budget of 1853 — that the consumer, in a few years, would secure the great advantage of cheaper tea, and that the income taxpayer, in a few years more, would see the last of a tax which he had regarded as a grievous burden. How far Mr. Gladstone was pru- dent in attempting to foreca.st the future, is a matter on which men may reasonably differ ; but perhaps, on the whole, that Finance Minister is the wisest who confines his proposals to the year in which he is speak- ing. Mr. Gladstone's example is at any rate a warning ' With the exception of the war ' See Sir Stafford Northcote's malt tax, which had expired in the Twenty Years of Financial Policy course of 1856. pp. 193-198. 68 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. 11. that a Chancellor of the Exchequer will do weU to re- "11857. member that, in politics, few things ever happen except the unforeseen. Before Mr. Gladstone brought forward another Budget, the country was drifting into the Crimean War; and long before 1860 the expense of that war, and the increased expenditure which was its indirect result, made it hopeless for him or for his successors to redeem the pledges which he had been sanguine enough to give in 1853. The Li 1854, indeed, when Mr. Gladstone introduced his onlg4. second Budget, the Crimean War had not actually broken out ; but the Government had decided, as a precautionary measure, on despatching a force of 25,000 . men to the East. All that Mr. Gladstone in the first instance thought it necessary to do was to provide for the cost of sending out these men and of bringing them home again ; but the expense raised the estimated expenditure of the year to 56,189,000^., a sum far larger than the income at Mr. Gladstone's disposal. To meet the deficiency, Mr. Gladstone decided on doubling the income tax during the first six months of the year. Two months later, the actual outbreak of the war com- pelled him to make a much larger provision, and Mr. Gladstone doubled the income tax for the whole year, increased the duties on Scotch and Irish spirits, revised the sugar duties, and raised the malt duty from 2s. S^d. to 4lS. per bushel. In addition he thought it necessary to raise Exchequer bonds to the amount of 6,000,000^., one-third of the sum raised being repayable in each of the years 1858, 1859, 1860.^ There was undoubtedly something heroic in this finance. Mr. Gladstone, with a great war in prospect, was virtually asking the country to bear the whole cost of it, or at any rate to repay within six years the ^ Sir Stafford Northcote's Twenty Tears of Financial Policy, pp. 243- THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ()9 whole of the temporary debt which he found himself chap. ii. ■compelled to raise. But he could have hardly concealed 1857. from himself that his new proposal made the promises , •of 1853 recede into a distant horizon. He was finding it necessary to double the tax which he had specially selected for remission ; and he was throwing on 1860, the year of so many hopes, the obligation of reducing one-third of the temporary debt which he was borrowing. The fall of Lord Aberdeen, and the subsequent The ' secession of the Peelites from Lord Palmerston's o"f||g_ ministry, relieved Mr. Gladstone from the task of pro- viding for the cost of the war in future years ; and, in 1855-56, Sir G. C. Lewis — on whom the duty fell — found himself confronted with an expenditure of more than 86,000,000/. while he thought himself only able to rely on a revenue of little more than 63,000,000/. He .met the deficiency by borrowing 16,000,000/. in Consols, by issuing 3,000,000/. in Exchequer biUs, and by increasing the duties on tea, coffee, sugar, Scotch and Irish spirits, and by raising the income tax from Is. 2d. to Is. Aid. in the pound.^ These changes made the promises of 1853 look more hoUow than ever. The very classes who had been given the expectation of relief were the classes on whom the burden of new taxation was pressing with special severity. The provision which the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer thus made did not prove sufficient to meet the whole expenses of the year. Later in the Session, Sir G. C. Lewis found it necessary to raise an ad- ditional 4,000,000/. in Exchequer bills, while early in 1856 — before the close of the financial year — he ■obtained authority for borrowing a further 5,000,000/. by the issue of consolidated stock. The peace, which happily succeeded, afforded a welcome relief to the ' Twenty Tears of Financial Policy, p. 267. 70 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. II. Exchequer ; and in moving the Budget of 1856-57, 1857. Sir G. C. Lewis, if he was unable to remit, at any rate The found it unnecessary to impose additional, taxation. omIsb. In order, however, to repay the remaining expenses of the war, he raised a further sum of 5,000,000/. in Consols.i Thus the war had added 26,000,000/., or more exactly some 26,930,000/.,^ to the capital of the funded debt, while at the same time authority had been granted for the issue of some 13,000,000/. of Ex- chequer bonds and Exchequer bills, and for funding another 3,000,000/. of Exchequer bills. As, however, these powers were not fully exercised, the unfunded debt during the war did not increase by more than 12,000,000/.^ Other changes, moreover, which were concurrently made in the debt affected these figures ; and the actual addition to the debt during the years of war may be placed at 37,000,000/. The balances in the Exchequer rose at the same time by ' Twenty Years of Financial 2nd loan of 1855-6, and loans. Policy, pp. 278, 279. The three of 1856-7, 10,930,000/. ; total, loans in Consols were raised on 26,930,000/. diiferent principles. The loan of ' Sir G. C. Lewis said in 1857 16,000,000/. in 1855 was raised at that the debt created during the par; but for each 100/. the country warwas: Funded Debt, 30,265,000/.; undertook to provide an annuity of Exchequer Bonds, 7,000,000/. ; Ex- 3/. 14«. 6(/. for thirty yeai-s and of chequer Bills, 5,041 ,0()0/. ; total, 3/. in perpetuity afterwards. This 42,306,000/. Hansard, vol. cxliv. plan was much criticised; and, in p. 619. Not 41,041,000/., as Sir S. the first loan of 1856, Sir G. C. Northcote states, Twenty Tears of Lewis undertook to give 111/. 2«. 2(/. Financial Policy, p. 295. I cannot, consolidated stock for every 100/. however, reconcile Sir G. G. Lewis's which he received in money. The figures with the exact facts. The credit of the country had sufficiently figures are so complicated that I improved in May 1856, when he tmnk a much fairer inference may issued his second loan of 5,000,000/., be drawn from the results. The to enable him to stipulate that the total capital of the funded debt,, contractors (Messrs. Rothschild) which stood on' the 6th of Janu- should receive only 107/. 10«. 7d. ary, 1854, at about 755,000,000/.,. in stock for each 100/. which they stood on the 3Ist of March, 1857, gave in money. The joint effect of at about 780,000,000/. The un- these two last transactions was that funded debt at the same time rosfr the country received 10,000,000/. and from rather more than 16,000,000/.- created in return for it stock exceed- to a little less than 28,000,000/.. ing 10,930,000/. See report, Public The net debt, therefore, did not IneomeandExpenditure,\o\.'n.^.hhQ. increase by more than 37,000,000/. » 1st loan of 1855-6, 16,000,000/. ; during the years given. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 71 more than 4,000,000^./ and it is probably therefore fair chap, il to say that the war added rather less than 33,000,000^. ^857. to the net indebtedness of the nation.^ In 1857 the taxation, which had been imposed during the continuance of the struggle for the purpose of the war, had expired or was about to expire. The war duty on malt had ceased automatically on the 5th of July, 1856 ; the war duties on tea, coffee, and sugar ceased on the 5 th of April, 1867. The war income tax was technically leviable till the 6th of April, 1858 ; but the Government considered that they could not take advantage of the accidental wording of the Act under which the tax had been granted, to levy the additional duty for a year longer than Parliament had obviously intended, and that they were bound to consider that the war income tax, like the war duties on tea, sugar, and coffee, expired on the 5th of April, 1857.^ This decision left the Chancellor of the Exchequer The in a position of some difficulty ; for, on the one hand, omIst. excluding the arrears of war taxation, the whole avail- able revenue, on which he thought he could rely in future years, amounted to only 62,015,000^.,* while, on ^ From 4,485,000/. on the 5th peace and no longer.' It so happened of January, 1854, to 8,668,000/. on that the treaty of peace was signed the 31st of March, 1867. on the 30th of March, but was not 2 It is right to add that 2,000,000/. ratified till the 27th of April, 1856, of this sum was lent to Sardinia, and and it followed, therefore, from the formed therefore no charge on the language of the Acts that, while the taxpayers of this country. war duties on tea &c. were to cease ' The war malt duty expired on after the 5th of April, 1857, in strict the 5th of July next after the law the income tax could be levied ratification of a definitive treaty of at the war rate till after the 5th peace. The war duties on tea, sugar, of April, 1858. See the Acts 17 & 18 and cofiee were granted ' till the Vict., cap. xxvii., and 18 & 19 Vict., 5th day of April inclusive which cap. xx. and xxi., and cf. Sir G. C. shall first happen after the end of Lewis in Hansard, vol. cxliv. pp. twelve months from the date of a 635, 658, 659. definitive treaty of peace with * I have arrived at this sum by Russia ; ' while the war income tax deducting the arrears of the war was given 'until the6thday of April income tax from the estimated pro- which shall first happen after the ceeds of the income tax given in expiration of one year from the a subsequent note. See note 1, ratification of a definitive treaty of p. 72. But even so the 62,015,000/ 72 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. 11. the other hand, if the war was over, it had left a legacy 1857. behind it in the shape of an increased and increasing expenditure. The normal expenditure of the nation, which Mr. Gladstone in 1853 had placed at about 52,000,000^., now exceeded 63,000,000/., and including the sum required for the repayment of debts, the amount which it was necessary to raise for the service of the year reached 65,474,000Z. Whatever other moral could be drawn from these figures, it was tolerably plain to any sensible person, who took the trouble to examine them, that the promise which Mr. Gladstone had made in 1853 was one which it would be very difficult to fulfil in I86O.1 Such, however, was not the opinion of the most eminent members of the House of Commons in 1857. Beyond all dispute the three men in the House out- side the Cabinet who carried the greatest weight in debate were Lord John Eussell, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Disraeli. All three men were agreed in thinking is too high, since it includes the Sir G. C Lewis left it. I have ho estimated receipts from the duties material, however, for making this on tea at the higher rate at which further correction. ' The expenditure of the nation (estimated in the Budget) in 1853 and 1857 was as follows : Debt Consol. Fund Army and Ordnance . Navy, including Packet Service Miscellaneous Kaffir War Collection of Revenue Superannuation Persian War 1853-64. 1867-58. £27,804,000 i'28,550,000 2,503,000 1,770,000 10,165,000 11,625,000 7,035,000 9,074,000 4,476,000 7,250,000 200,000 4,215,000 475,000 265,000 £52,188,000 63,224,000 Redemption of Exchequer Bonds 2,000,000 Sinking Fund on second Loan of £5,000,000 250,000 £65,474,000 Hansard, vol. cxliv. pp. 639, 640, and cf. History of England, vol. v. p. 475, note. It is fair to point out that in 1863-54 the expenditure did not, and that in 1857-58 it did, include the cost of collecting the revenue and of superannuation. These services were in 1853-54 paid out of the gross receipts on their way to the Exchequer. THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 73 that the road to safety and no income tax lay chap.ii. through the reduction of military and naval expendi - 1857.~ ture. In the debate on the Address, Lord John Eussell said : ' We have been accustomed (and very great ministers have sanctioned the practice) to keep up low establishments in time of peace ; and, though there has been always a complaint in the first year of war that we have been very unprepared, somehow or other after a time we have generally felt ourselves strong- enough to meet our enemy ; ' and he concluded : ' It is by such a system, and by relying on the greatness of the country and on the spirit of our people, that you will be the most formidable in war, and not by any new-fangled system of increased estimates during a time of peace.' Mr. Gladstone, speaking on the same occasion, registered his ' earnest and solemn protest against the enlarge- ment of the whole system of peace expenditure.' But Mr. Disraeli went much farther. He expressed a hope that the glories of the late war would not induce the people to sanction extravagant military establishments. He added his conviction that the more the burden of the people was reduced, the greater would be their strength when the hour of danger came ; and he announced his intention to formulate resolutions in the spirit of this language, declaring that war taxation should not be levied in time of peace, and that the promises of 1853 should in spirit be adhered to. He added, in language which may seem strange to a generation which, forgetting Mr. Disraeli's conduct from 1857 to 1866, has made him the hero of a policy opposed to his declarations in those years : ' I cannot but believe that, if these resolutions are carried, we shall witness some beneficial changes in the financial system of the country. I think we shall give a great impetus to salutary economy ; and shall in a most significant manner express our opinion that it is 74 TPIE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. II . not advisable that England should become what is 1857. called " a great military nation." ' ^ The Chan- Thus the Finance Minister, in 1857, was confronted the Ex-* with a double difficulty. The resources at his disposal chequer, were insufficient to cover the expenditure for which he had to provide ; and the men whose weight in the House was incontestable were unanimous in demanding retrenchment as the only remedy for the situation. In the Cabinet, Lord Palmerston was upholding British interests with a vigour which necessitated large arma- ments ; and in the House of Commons, Mr. Disraeli was denouncing the policy which was apparently making us a great military nation. The man who held the office of Finance Minister in 1857, and on whom the preparation of the Budget, in consequence, fell, had little in common either with Lord Palmerston or with Mr. Disraeli. Without the imagination which attracts, or the eloquence which commands, attention, he had know- ledge, ability, and judgment. He was one of the few men of his age, or indeed of any age, who habitually thought. But constant thinking had made him cautious and sceptical, and left him none of the enthusiasm which gives men confidence in themselves, and gains them the support of their fellows. Thus his tempera- ment, which made him a power in the Cabinet, and which won him respect in the House, procured him little or no notice in the country. In the inner circle of his own colleagues, and possibly in the rather larger circle of his friends in Parliament, he was regarded as one of the few men who might possibly preside over the fortunes of the country. Outside the House, beyond the narrow limits of the little county in which he lived, he would hardly have been able to command a large audience, or to hold it together for an hour. It is the usual custom of Finance Ministers to delay ' Hansard, vol. cxliv. pp. 133, 135, 152, 185, 186. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 75 their Budget statements till the close of the financial chap, ii. year. Sir G. C. Lewis showed his appreciation of the 1857. exceptional circumstances in which he was placed by making it on the 13th of February. He met an ex- ceptional situation by a commonplace method. With an income insufficient to cover the expenditure of 65,474,000^., it was clear that he could not afford to give up the whole of the additional taxation im- posed during the war, and he decided, while reducing the income tax to the full extent contemplated by the Act, to slacken the rate of reduction in the duties on tea, coffee, and sugar. ^ This modification, the arrears in the war income tax, and the increasing- supplies which he hoped to derive in a year of peace and apparent prosperity, justified him in placing the whole revenue of the year at 66,365,000^.^ As he had estimated the expenditure at 65,474,000^., he was left with a surplus of 891,000/. So far as the year 1857-58 was concerned, there was little doubt that the surplus was adequate ; but, as a large portion of the surplus was due to the arrears of the war income tax, which would not be available after the current financial year, ' The duty on tea would have fallen automatically from Is. 9d. to Is. Sd. per lb. in April 1857 and to Is. per lb. in April 1858. Sir G. 0. Lewis asked the House to fix it at Is. 7d. in 1857-58, Is. 5d. in 1858-59, Is. 3d. in 1859-60, and at Is. in later years. See Hansard, vol. clxiv. p. 661. For the similar treatment of the sugar duties see ibid., p. 662. " It may be convenient to place side by side (1) Sir G. C. Lewis's estimate on the 13th of February, 1857, of the revenue of 1856-57, and (2) his estimate of the revenue of 1857-58 : Battmate (or Estimate for 1856-67. 1867-68. Customs £23,600,000 £22,850,000 Excise . 17,600,000 17,000,000 Stamps . 7,265,000 7,460,000 Taxes . 3,110,000 3,150,000 Income Tax 16,250,000 11,450,000 Post OflSce 2,800,000 3,000,000 Crown Lands 260,000 265,000 Miscellaneous 1,000,000 1,200,000 £71,885,000 £66,365,000 Hansard, vol. cxliv. pp. 632, 662. 76 THE HISTORY OF TVVENTY-FI^^E YEARS. CHAP. II. the Budget was open to the criticism that it postponed 1857. till 1858-59 the difficulty of providing a revenue adequate to cover the increased expenditure of the country, and that it failed to make any provision whatever for redeeming the pledges and promises of his predecessor in 1853. His critics. Such, liowever, was Sir G. C. Lewis's plan. Perhaps no Budget during the last fifty years of the nineteenth century excited stronger passions or was assailed with greater vehemence. Mr. Disraeli, who led. the opposition to it, redeemed the promise which he had made in the debate on the Address, by moving a resolu- tion affirming that the Budget was not calculated to secure the country against the risk of a deficiency in the succeeding years, and asked the House to affirm that the income and expenditure should be readjusted in such a way that Parliament might have a reasonable prospect of getting rid of the income tax in 1860.^ Mr. Gladstone, who said in private that the Budget was ' the worst that was ever produced,' - assailed it in a speech of extraordinary vehemence. He declared that, while the Minister was claiming credit for reducing taxation, he was really increasing taxation, since he was continuing the duties on tea and sugar at a higher rate than Parliament had contemplated. He complained that Sir G. C. Lewis was making no adequate provision for the necessities of future years, or, in the present year, for the expense of the Persian war, and that he was making no provision of any kind for the expense of ' The precise words of Mr. Dis- 1859-60, and to provide for such a raeli's motion are : ' In the opinion balance of revenue and charge re- ef this House, it would be expedient, spectively in the year 1860 as may before sanctioning the financial ar- place it in the power of Parliament rangements for the ensuing year, to at that period, without embarrass- adjust the estimated income and ment to the finances, altogether to expenditure in the manner which remit the income tax.' Ibid., p. 970. shall appear best calculated to secure ' Greville, 3rd Series, vol. ii. p. 86, the country against the risk of a and see an interesting passage in deficiency in the years 1858-59 and Mr. Morley's Oladstone, vol. i. p. 560. THE HISTOEy OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 77 the war with China. He argued, therefore, that there chap. ii. was no guarantee that the ensuing year would close 1857. with a surplus, while he insisted that in future years, when there would be no arrears of war income tax to collect, and when the duties on tea and coffee would be further reduced, the country would find itself in the presence of a deficit so large that it would be neces- sarily embarrassing. But this was only one side of Mr. Gladstone's case. He went on to show that Parliament, in 1853, had pro- vided for the extinction of the income tax in 1860, and that Sir G. C. Lewis was making its extinction imprac- ticable ; and he proceeded to argue that, while on every previous occasion in which an income tax had been imposed in times of peace, it had been used as a lever to enable the Minister to accomplish commercial reforms of clear and undoubted benefit, on this occasion, on the contrary, the Minister was reimposing the income tax at its old rate, and at the same time continuing the duties on tea and sugar at higher rates than Parliament had contemplated. Such a course appeared to Mr. Glad- stone's indignant imagination as a repudiation of the principle which Sir Eobert Peel had laid down in 1842 and 1845, and which he himself had extended in 1853, and which, it was almost universally admitted, had done so much to promote the prosperity of the country and the weal of the people.^ The House, however, declined to be carried away its adop- by Mr. Gladstone's indignant eloquence. It probably *'°"' considered that, whatever arrangements might be neces- sary for other years. Sir G. C. Lewis was proposing a not unfair scheme for the necessities of 1857-58 ; and it declined to follow Mr. Disraeli, on the one hand, in ' Hansard,, vol. cxliv. p. 986. the reader should turn to Bagehot, For a temperate and favourable Biographical Studies, pp. 241, 242. review of Sir G. C. Lewis's finance, 78 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. II. insisting that it was the duty of Parliament to provide 1857. in 1857 for the extinction of the income tax in 1860, or to accept, on the other hand, Mr. Gladstone's con- tention that the continuance of the income tax was only justifiable if large commercial reforms, which the country was not in a position to afford, were at the same time effected.^ The success of the Budget temporarily strengthened Lord Palmerston's position. He had successfully re- sisted an attack on an important portion of his policy, which had been led by Mr. Disraeli, which had been supported by Mr. Gladstone, and which had been assisted by Mr. Cobden. But it was already evident that a more formidable question was preparing diffi- culties for the Minister. Within three days of the successful division, the policy of the Ministry towards China was arraigned in the House of Lords by Lord Derby, and in the House of Commons by Mr. Cobden ; and, while these debates were in actual progress, Lord Derby communicated to a private meeting of the Con- servative party the significant fact that he was in alliance with Mr. Gladstone.^ An attack, which was made in one House by the leader of the Conser- vative party, which was led, in the other, by the leader of the free-traders, which was supported by Mr. Gladstone, and which, as was immediately after- wards apparent, was assisted by Lord John Eussell, was obviously based on a combination which placed the Minister in a minority in the House of Commons. The origin The facts Were as follows. A lorcha, named the Chinese Arrow, built by a Chinese owner in 1854, and sold to War. 1 Mr. Disraeli's amendment was taken from that paper. Greville, rejected by 286 votes to 206. writing two days afterwards, said : Hansard, vol. cxliv. p. II49. ' Derby has announced to his as- * This is the interpretation which sembled party that he is ready to the Times gave of the speech, join with Gladstone, though he has Seethe Kmes, 2nd of March, 1857. not done so yet.' GremWe, 3rd Series, And the words ' in alliance ' are vol. ii. p. 95. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 79 a Chinese owner in Canton, was subsequently transferred chap. ii. to a Chinese merchant resident in Hong Kong. It was 1857. the custom of the British authorities at Hong Kong to treat Chinese merchants resident in the colony as quasi-naturalised British subjects ; and the owner of the Arrow claimed and obtained, in accordance with this custom, a letter of register from the Chief Super- intendent of Trade, entitling it to certain privileges of trade in Chinese ports, and authorising it, when so trading, to fly the British flag. These letters of register were directed to be granted to British vessels under a treaty made with China in 1843. They were renewable annually ; and, as a matter of fact, the letter of register ■of the Arrow was renewed on the 27th of September, 1855, and expired on the 27th of September, 1856. The Arrow was commanded by a British subject, an Irishman, who had under his orders a crew of thirteen Chinese sailors. Apart from the very serious questions (i) whether a vessel owned by a Chinese merchant, who was only resident on British territory and had not been formally naturalised, was entitled to receive a letter of register, or (ii) whether a vessel manned almost exclu- sively by a Chinese crew could be registered as a British vessel, it is certain that in the case of the Arrow the letter of register and the privilege which it gave expired on the 27th of September, 1856. On the morning of the 8th of October, 1856, while the The --.. Arrow Arrow was lying at the mouth of the Canton Eiver, she was boarded, in the temporary absence of her captain, by Chinese officials, who insisted on carrying off" the whole of her crew, on the ground that one of them had been engaged in acts of piracy. On the remon- strance of her captain, who returned before the arrest had been completed, two of the crew were left in charge of the vessel, but the remainder of the men were taken from her. It is not actually certain whether the 80 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. , CHAP. II. Arrow at the time was flying the British flag or not ; 18577^ but it is, certain that, as her letter of register had ex- pired, she had no clear right to be flying it.^ On these proceedings being reported to Mr. Parkes, our Consul at Hong Kong, he demanded that the men arrested should be brought to the British Consulate and that the charge against them should be investigated there. On the refusal of this demand he appealed to Commissioner Yeh, the Chinese Governor of Canton, and at the same time wrote for instructions to Sir John Bowring, the Governor and Superintendent of Trade at Hong Kong. In the negotiations which ensued Sir John, though he was aware that the Arrow had no right to fly a British flag, her register having expired, relied on the Chinese authorities being ignorant of this circum- stance, and insisted on an apology, on an undertaking to respect the British flag in the future, and on the pubUc liberation of the arrested men. Commissioner Yeh, on the contrary, contended that the Arrow was a purely Chinese vessel, and that at the time of the arrest she was not flying the British flag, and had no British sub- ject on board of her.^ ^ It ought, perhaps, on the other to a subject of a foreign country- hand, to be stated that it was the against the country of which he is custom at Hong Kong to give these a subject. See Lord Lyndhurst in letters of register to vessels owned by ibid., p. 1214. But the strongest Chinese who were settled at Hong condemnation of Sir John Bowring's Kongandtenantsof Crownproperty; attitude, respecting the Arrow, is that a similar custom prevailed to be found in the words of Lord at Singapore ; and that the Arrow's Elgin, who was employed to exact letter of register had expired when reparation from the Chinese. He she was at sea, and vessels at sea wrote : ' I have hardly alluded in were not called upon to renew their my ultimatum to that wretched register until they reached the question of the Arrow, which is waters of the colony to which they a scandal to us, and is so considered, belonged. See Lord Clarendon's I have reason to know, by all remarks in Hansard, vol. cxliv. pp. except the few who are personally 1198-1200. But it must be recol- compromised.' Waldron's Life of lected that though the issue of a Lord Elgin, p. 209. letter of register to the Arrow gave ' See inter alia Commissioner the vessel rights and privileges in Yeh's own letters in Pari. Papers, British waters and in British Correspondence relating to Lord courts, no British letter of register Elgin's Mission (1857-1859), pp. could give any rights or privileges 102, 121, THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 81 Failing to secure redress by pacific means, Mr. chap. ii. Parkes, by Sir John Bowring's orders, called on the 1857. Admiral in command of the British squadron. Sir Michael Seymour, to enforce it. Sir Michael, in the first instance, seized a Chinese junk; but, as this seizure produced no efiect, he attacked and took the forts which guarded the approaches to Canton. Thereupon Com- missioner Yeh surrendered the twelve men who had been taken out of the Arrow, demanding that two of them, who had been accused of piracy, should be returned to be dealt with under Chinese law. Most people will probably conclude that there were many reasons why Sir John Bowring should have closed the whole incident at this stage. Though the men taken from the Arrow had not been returned with the publicity which had been required, and though no apology had been tendered, the power of England had been effectually displayed, and reparation had been sub- stantially granted. A knowledge that the expiration of the Arrow's letter of register virtually knocked the bottom out of the British case might, therefore, have disposed any ordinary diplomatist to moderation ; but, so far from being moderate. Sir John declined to receive the men who had been returned, and raised a new demand. By a succession of treaties, made in 1843, 1846, and 1847,1 British subjects, from the 6th of April, 1849, were secured free entrance to the town of Canton. The Chinese had, however, successfully evaded this stipulation. Successive British Governments, with their hands full elsewhere, had hesitated to enforce it, and the authorities at Hong Kong had been specially enjoined to be very circumspect in securing its fulfil- ment. Sir John Bowring, however, considered that Thebom- the dispute about the Arrow afforded a convenient of Canton. ' These treaties are reprinted vol. xxxiv. p. 26, and vol. xxxv. in State Papers, vol. xxxi. p. 132, p. 6. VOL. I. G 82 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. •CHAP. II. opportunity for pressing tlie demand, and, as Commis- ^ISStT sioner Yeh returned no answer to it, directed Sir Michael Seymour to renew hostilities. On the British side Sir Michael Seymour easily succeeded in sinking a large number of junks, and in destroying some forts manned with hundreds of guns, for the power of defence does not depend on the weight of armaments, but on skiU in using them. On the Chinese side Commissioner Yeh, probably feeling himself powerless, offered a reward of thirty doUars for the head of every Englishman.^ When these events occurred, it must be recollected that it took seven weeks for news to reach England from Hong Kong, and seven weeks more to send orders from England to China. No Government, therefore, however much it might have hesitated to approve all that had occurred, could have exerted any influence on the course of events for fourteen weeks after the com- mencement of hostilities at Canton. In these circumstances a wise Minister, who regretted the rash conduct of his agent, might have hesitated to throw him over. He would probably, however, have taken care to point out to him that the original British case was not a very clear one, and that the new British demand was one which it would have been better not to make at all without direct authority from home. But a prudent course of this kind did not commend itself to Lord Palmerston. If Mr. Greville, who writies on the authority of Lord Granville (a member of the Cabinet), may be trusted, both Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon were under the impression that the proceedings at Canton would be received with great applause and satisfaction in England, and were ' For tliese events see Han- facts) ; Ashley's Life of Palmirs- mrd vol. cxUv. pp. I l.'iS, 1310, ton, vol. ii. p. 344 ; Morley's Life 1391, U05, and 1589; Ann. Reg., of Cobden, vol. ii. p. 187; Greville 1856, Hist., p. 256 (where there is Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 91 seq. a very temperate summary of the THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 83 accordingly in a hurry to identify themselves with chap. ii. Sir John Bowring's action.^ The story shows that Lord 1857. Palmerston understood the feeling of the country much more accurately than he gauged the opinion of the House of Commons ; but it does not afford any excuse for the decision of the Minister. It was Lord Palmers- ton's duty in 1857 to determine what was just, not merely to consider what was popular; and justice, most people will think, was not on the side of Sir John Bowring. Such were the main facts of the case which enabled the Conservatives under Lord Derby, and the free- traders under Mr. Cobden, to combine with an ex-Prime Minister, Lord John Eussell, and an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, in the rdost formidable assault which Lord Palmerston's Ministry had up to this time sustained. Most of these men had no diffi- culty in joining in the attack. They genuinely thought that Sir John Bowring had committed a series of acts of gross injustice, and had initiated most improperly a serious war. But Mr. Cobden and his immediate friends might have hesitated to press the case home, for Sir John Bowring, before he had gone to China, . Taad made his reputation as a strong Liberal, and as one of the founders of the ' Westminster Eeview ; ' and the men who had, in other times, welcomed his assistance might naturally have hesitated to be fore- most in condemning his action. Mr. Cobden and his friends, however, judged, and rightly judged, that public duty could not be neglected because of private friendship ; and believing, as they did, that Sir John Bowring's action was an exaggerated instance of the indiscretion which had led us into previous wars, deemed it their duty to express their opinion in a manner which could not be misunderstood. ' Qreville, vol. ii. p. 93. 84 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. II. Proceed- ings in Parlia- ment. Lord Pal- merston defeated in the* Commons. Thus it happened that the attack, which was led by Lord Derby in one House, was initiated by Mr. Cobden in the other. But, while both Houses were asked to condemn Sir John Bowring's conduct, the condemnation in each was expressed in different terms. In the Lords, Lord Derby moved a series of resolutions regretting the interruption of amicable relations between her Majesty's subjects and the Chinese authorities ; asserting that the time was peculiarly unfavourable for pressing upon the Chinese a claim for the admission of British subjects into Canton, which had been left in abeyance since 1849, and declaring that operations of actual hostility ought not to have been undertaken without the ex- press instructions previously received of her Majesty's Government. In the Commons, Mr. Cobden asked the House to resolve that ' the papers which have been laid upon the table fail to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures, resorted to at Canton in the late affair of the Arrow,' and to appoint a Select Committee ' to inquire into the state of our commercial relations with China.' In the debate in the House of Lords, Lord Derby was reinforced by Lord Grey, who had been the colleague of Lord Palmerston under Lord Melbourne,, by Lord EUenborough, and by the Bishop of Oxford. In the Commons, Mr. Cobden received the active support of Mr. Disraeli and the whole Conservative party, of Lord John Eussell, and Mr. Gladstone, No one who reads now the chief speeches in these memorable debates will doubt that the force of argu- ment was on the side of the attack, and that the case against the Government received no satisfactory reply. Lord Lyndhurst in the one House, and Lord John Eussell in the other, were practically unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable ; but, in the Lords, the Ministry succeeded in obtaining the support of a sufficient THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. 85 majority : in the Commons it found itself in a minority chap. ii. of sixteen votes.^ 1857. Oddly enough, the votes of the two Houses exactly reversed their relative positions towards Lord Palmers- ton seven years before. In 1850, Lord Stanley — who had since become Lord Derby — had carried a resolution condemning Lord Palmerston's policy towards Greece by almost exactly the same majority by which he was defeated in 1857.^ And the resolution had been practically reversed by a vote of the House of Commons on Mr. Eoebuck's motion approving Lord Palmerston's foreign policy. To complete the contrast, Mr. Eoe- buck, who had come to Lord Palmerston's rescue in 1850, both spoke and voted against the Government in 1857. But, of course, the majority against the Minister in the Commons in 1857 could not be dis- regarded like the majority against him in the Lords in 1850. The Cabinet, at once, saw that the vote must be regarded as fatal either to the Ministry who sus- tained, or to the House which inflicted it. With a correct appreciation of the feelings of the country, they decided on appealing to the constituencies, and, on the day succeeding that which followed the division. Lord Granville announced in one House, Lord Pahnerston in the other, that as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made, the Ministry would throw ' upon the country the responsibility of determining what Adminis- tration shall be invested with the conduct and manage- ment of the affairs of the nation.' ^ To the course which Ministers proposed to follow, ^ The majority in the Lords was not desire a change of Ministry ; 146 to 110. Hansard, vol. cxliv. and many Liberals, who liked Lord p. 1385. In the Commons the Palmerston, could not conscienti- majority against the Government ously support the proceedings in was 263 to 247. Ibid., p. 1846. China. Considering the critical nature of ^ By 37 votes instead of 36. Hist. the debate, the division was not a of England, vol. v. p. 416, note, large one. But many Conservatives, ' Hansard, vol. cxliv. pp. 1885, who disliked the Chinese War, did 1894. 86 THE HISTOIiY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP.^. no objection could be taken. Mr. Disraeli indeed, 1857. towards the close of the debate, had almost dared Lord The dis- Palmerston to take it. ' Let the noble lord,' he had of'issT ^^^^' ' "^o* °^ly complain to the country, but let him appeal to the country. ... I should like to see the programme of the proud leader of the Liberal party — ■ " No reform ! New taxes ! Canton blazing ! Persia, invaded ! " ' ^ He could not, therefore, refuse to facilitate the course which Lord Palmerston proposed. But there were two points on which other men naturally desired information. Mr. Cobden, who was afterwards supported by Mr. Gladstone, put the plain question, ' What is to go on in China ' during the weeks which must elapse before a new Parliament can meet ? ^ And Mr. Gladstone added the further question. What is to be done about finance? Are the complicated arrangements which Sir G. C. Lewis has proposed, affecting the revenue of the succeeding three years, to be sanctioned in the last moments of a condemned House of Commons ? ^ With regard to the last question Sir G. C. Lewis stated that he intended, at once, to move the reduction of the income tax from 14:d. to 7d. ; to confine his proposals relative to tea, coffee, and sugar to the single financial year for which he was providing ; and to fix the duty on tea at Is. 5d. instead of, as he had originally proposed, at Is. 7d. in the lb.* With regard to the first question, Lord Palmerston declared that there would be no change, and could be no change, in the policy of the Government. That policy is ' to maintain in China, as 1 Sansard, vol. cxliv. p. 1840. ' Ibid., p. 1901, and cf. Mr. Glad- Mr. Cobden afterwards said the same stone, p. 1914. thing. 'The noble lord sends his ' P. 1926. followers to the country with the * Ibid., p. 1937. It may be cou- cry, " Palmerston for ever ! No venient to add that, in the new reform ! and a Chinese war ! " ' Parliament, Sir G. C. Lewis ob- Ibid., p. 1899. Mr. Disraeli's ' Can- tained the continuance of the duties ton blazing ! Persia invaded ! ' had on tea and sugar for three years in- been used by him before in the stead of confining it to one year, debate on the Address. Ibid., p. 125. Sansard, vol. cxlvii. p. 1485. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 87 elsewhere, security for the lives and property of British chap. ii. subjects ; ' but he added that, without in any way 1857. undervaluing the merits of Sir John Bowring, the Government thought it desirable to entrust the nego- tiations, which must probably take place, to some indi- vidual who could proceed direct from this country with their verbal instructions, and who ' would be likely to carry more weight than any person who might happen, now to be in China.' ^ Nine days afterwards it was formally announced in the ' Times ' that Lord Elgin, who had served with efficiency as Governor-General of Canada, had accepted the mission. These statements facilitated the course of business, and enabled the Ministry to make arrangements for an early dissolution. The centre of gravity in politics was suddenly transferred from the House of Commons to the constituencies ; and members, anxious to ascertain what the electors would determine, paid only a desultory attention to their duties in the House. They were not The long in doubt as to the decision at which the country ll J^" * would arrive. However formidable the position of the country. Opposition had proved in debate, the arguments on which they had relied were too technical to be under- stood by the masses of the people. They, perhaps, could not have been expected to appreciate the exact legal status of the Arrow, or the justice of the measures which Sir John Bowring had taken to obtain redress ; but they knew that the Arrow was ' a vessel of an ostensibly British character, and engaged in British trade ; that she had a British captain — whether up or down, a British flag.; whether in full force or not, a British register.' They were taught that Yeh, under whose orders her flag had been ignored, and her crew taken from her, was ' one of the greatest monsters that ever disgraced 1 Hansard, toI. cxliv. pp. 1935, 1936. 88 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. 11. humanity : ' ^ they were assured that the Chinese, by 1857. refusing British merchants access to Canton, were dis- regarding the express provisions of a treaty, and were injuring. British trade and British interests. What, in comparison with such facts as these, were obscure questions whether the Arrow should have had a letter of register, or whether her letter of register had or had not expired ? British interests were at stake ; and the country was prepared to support the Minister who told them that he was ready to assert the cause and uphold the honour of the nation.^ Thus the issue, on which the country was virtually determined to pronounce its decision, was quite different from that on which the House of Commons had given its vote. The House had condemned the Government for supporting the methods which Sir John Bowring had adopted ; the country hardly paused to consider the propriety of these methods, but rallied to the Minister who was ready, at any cost, to maintain the interests of British trade and sustain the honour of the British flag. Assurances of support flowed in on the Prime Minister from every part of England. The leading merchants of London engaged in the Chinese trade led the way with an address ; the Corporation of the City followed with a vote of confidence. The Lord Mayor seized the occasion to invite the Minister to a banquet, ' These extracts are from the who take part with any foreigner leading article in the Times of the against an Englishman, and who, 2nd of March, 1857. ' Poor ' Yeh— like the hon. member for the "West the epithet is Lord Elgin's (Life, Riding [Mr. Cobden], almost re- p. 211) — seems to have been a nor- pudiate their country.' Mansard, * mal specimen of his race, without vol. oxliv. p. 1832. He said at the more vices or more virtues than the Mansion House seventeen days 'after- ordinary Chinese official. wards, ' If the day should come ^ Lord Palmerston thoroughly when peace is to be sought by appreciated the position of the humiliation and degi'adation, the country. He said in the House, country must look elsewhere for 'There are some members of the the instruments of national dis- Legislature who raise the nicest honour and disgrace.' Times, 21st legal quibbles, who endeavour to of March, 1857. excuse the most atrocious crimes, THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 89 which gave him the opportunity of dehvering an elec- chap. ii. tioneering speech.^ Thoughtful men gravely censured 1857. the language which he employed, and which they de- clared unworthy of him.^ It was, at any rate, exactly suited to the opinion of the hour, and nicely calcu- lated to fan the breeze of popularity which was bearing him to victory. The result of the election was already certain before a single poll was taken. The country, it was soon evident, had decided on parting with the men who had opposed the policy of the Minister. Even the reputation which Lord John Eussell had acquired, and the services which he had rendered, ' seemed, at one moment, insufficient to secure his re- election for the City. Conservative candidates found it necessary, in some places, to explain that they did not disapprove Lord Palmerston's policy. No explana- tions were either forthcoming or would have been accepted in 1857 from free traders and Peelites. Mr. Cardwell, though he had held high office, was defeated at Oxford ; Mr. Frederick Peel, though he held office under Lord Palmerston, was defeated at Bury. The free traders were almost swept away. Mr. Cobden, who did not venture to stand for his old seat in the West Eiding, was beaten at Huddersfield ; Mr. Bright was left at the bottom of the poU in Manchester ; Mr. Mihier Gibson shared his defeat ; Mr. Fox was thrown out at Oldham ; Mr. Miall at Eochdale. These men had been denounced by the Prime Minister as the organisers of a combination with the Tories to eject him from office ; and the country responded with no uncertain voice. The services which they had rendered, the boon which they had conferred on the people in giving them cheap bread, were forgotten in 1857. All that the country recollected was that they had opposed ^ See Times, 9th, 10th, and 21st ^ See Gremlle, 3rd Series, vol. ii. of March, 1857. p. 100. 90 THE HISTORY OF TWENTl'-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. II. the Crimean War, that they had condemned Sir 1857. John Bowring's pohcy, that they had deserted Lord Palmerston. The The aspect of the House of Commons was changed Lord'^Paf- by the election. One hundred and eighty-nine men merston. ^^^ j^g^^j ^^^ gg^^ -^^ ^-^q Parliament of 1852 were re- turned.^ The small and loosely knit Palmerstonian majority was turned into a large and compact majority; and, ' for the first time in his long career,' Lord Palmers- ton found himself ' at the head of a party as well as of a Government.' ^ As in the case of Mr. Pitt, the vqte of the country had been pronounced, not in favour of a policy, but in favour of a man. It was Lord Palmers- ton's popularity, the confidence which was felt in his high bearing, which had turned the scale. The other members of the Cabinet hardly counted in the decision. Men who knew might rely on the experience of Lord Lansdowne, the sagacity of Sir George Lewis, the prudence of Lord Clarendon, the capacity of Sir George Grey, the judgment of Lord Granville, and the dexterity of Sir Charles Wood ; but none of these men impressed themselves on the people at large. If Lord Palmerston had been deserted by all his colleagues, the issue would not have been affected. It was his popularity, his courage, his civis Romanus policy, which had carried the election. There was one other respect in which the aspect of the new House of Commons differed from that of the old. For nearly eighteen years Mr. Shaw Lefevre h,ad filled the chair. No man had ever discharged the high functions of the Speakership with greater dignity or to greater advantage. Nature had endowed him with high qualifications for the ofiice. An imposing ' lAfe of Prince Consort, vol. iv. Timet' Review of the Session. See p. 26. the Times, 29th of August, 1867. ^ The phrase is taken from the THE HISTOKY OP TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 91 presence, a rich and sonorous voice, impressed them- chap. ii. selves on the House. Always fair, always courteous, 1857. with a knowledge that was rarely at fault, and a temper The that was never ruffled, men yielded at once to his 1^""^^ authority, and acknowledged the grace with which Speaker- it was exercised. Later critics have indeed observed that Mr. Shaw Lefevre's Speakership feU in easier times than those which tried the capacity of some of his successors. But those, who are aware of the disorder into which the House of Commons had fallen under the rule of his predecessor, and contrast it with the order which he preserved and left as a tradition to his succes- sors, will not be disposed to accept this contention, and will place Mr. Lefevre's services in the chair on at least a level with those of the greatest of the great men who, since his retirement, have held the Speakership. Mr. Lefevre took advantage of the dissolution to obtain release from the heavy duties of an office which he had filled with so much honour to himself and with so much advantage to the public. It was natural that, with a triumphant majority at his back, Lord Palmerston should look for a successor among his own immediate followers ; and his choice fell on Mr. Evelyn Denison, a member of a distinguished family, who had sat in Parliament for various constit:uencies for the best part of a generation, and who, though he had never held office or taken an active share in debate, had devoted much time and thought to the public and private business of the House, and had thus acquired a know- ledge of its forms and rules which was in itself a high qualification for his important office. Some days after the old Parliament had been dissolved, news reached England that the Emperor of China had enjoined his Commissioner — Yeh — to pursue a policy of conciliation towards the English.^ ' Times, 28th of March, 1857 ; cf. Greville, vol. ii. p. 103. 92 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. CHAP. II. Lord Elgin's task seemed likely to be made easier by ~ 1857. ' this intelligence. But, almost on the very day on which the new Parliament met, intelligence arrived The out- of ' a strange feeling of discontent pervading the Indian thT^e°l army.'i Perhaps no man in England suspected the mutiny, extent of the mischief which was thus brewing ; yet in the days in which the electors were rallying to the polls in Lord Palmerston's support, and in the days in which the new Parhament was addressing itself to its work, events were rapidly occurring in Berhampore, Meerut, Delhi, and Cawnpore, which were destined to try the constancy of the British race as it had rarely been tried before. The history of the mutiny of the sepoy army in India has already been related in another work,^ and it is not proposed to repeat the narrative here. In these pages it is necessary to aUude to two circumstances only. In the first place, it was fortunate for England that the mutiny broke out at a moment when, either rightly or wrongly, troops were on their way to China. Diverted at Singapore to Calcutta on the request of Lord Canning, and with the consent of Lord Elgin, they afforded a welcome reinforcement to our overtaxed forces, and helped to strengthen the arms of England at the moment when she was in sorest need of assistance. And, in the next place, the crisis in India strengthened the power of Lord Palmerston. The people instinctively felt that the veteran statesman, who had brought the Crimean War to a conclusion, was the fittest man to deal with the new and graver difficulty which threatened the country. Thus the nation derived some assistance in its hour of danger from Lord Palmerston's policy ; and Lord Palmerston obtained fresh security from the nation's difficulties. If the Minister owed much of his popularity to ' Greville, vol. ii. p. 106. * See Hist, of Miff land, vol. vi. p. 275 seg. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 93 external difficulties, he increased it, in the debate on chap. ii. the Address, by promising consideration for a measure 1857. of organic reform. The Session, so Lord Palmerston LordPai- thought, would be too short to make it either profitable ^o^'ggg or practicable to introduce a Eeform Bill in 1857. It reform. ■would, indeed, so he added, be impossible for him to enter into details, which the Government, he frankly admitted, had not had the opportunity of considering ; but he promised that during the recess the matter should receive the most careful consideration, and he expressed a strong hope that it would be possible in 1858 to introduce a measure ^ ' calculated to meet the just expectations of the country, correct those defects which exist in the present system of representation, and extend the franchise to classes of persons now unmeritedly excluded from that privilege.' No one, of course, foresaw that these smooth words were to have no practical effect during Lord Palmerston's own life- time, or during the nine years which followed their utterance ; but they afforded the House of Commons a convenient excuse for temporarily shelving all parts of a question in which only a minority among its members took a real interest. When Mr. Locke King, the brother of Lord Lovelace, and the member for Surrey, asked the House to abolish the property qualification which members of Parliament were still required to possess, he was met with the convenient argument that there was an understanding that ' all questions connected with the representation of the people and the organisation of the House should be postponed until' 1858.^ When Mr. Berkeley, the mem- ber for Bristol, on whom the parliamentary mantle of Mr. Grote, the historian, had fallen, rose to advocate the adoption of the ballot, his motion was summarily 1 Hansard, vol. cxlv. p. 66. ^ Ibid., pp. 222, 1545. 94 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP^. defeated.^ When Lord Eobert Cecil, who had just 1857. commenced, as member for Stamford, a parliamentary career which was ultimately to place him in the highest position in the State, moved for a Select Committee to inquire into the expediency of collecting the votes at county and university elections by voting .papers, the motion found no favour.^ The great majority of members had, in fact, welcomed Lord Palmerston's promise that the question of parliamentary reform should be postponed, and were determined to refrain from dealing with any of the subsidiary details of a measure which had been temporarily shelved as a whole. This decision left the .House free to devote such time as it had at its disposal to other subjects. For some years before 1857 the opinion of the public had been gradually changing on the policy of the laws affecting marriage. From the earliest period of history two distinct views have been held on the subject of marriage. One view of the matter, which was embodied in the old Eoman law,^ was that marriage was a volun- tary union terminable at any time at the instance of either The of the parties to it. The other view, which was adopted Jivorce. by the early Christian Church, was that marriage was a Divine institution, and that the tie was indissoluble. Under the later Eoman emperors the influence of the Church modified the view of marriage which had pre- viously been held in the Eoman world, and, though divorce was not actually prohibited, ' the pious austerity of [Justinian] broke out so vehemently as to enact that when husband and wife agreed to divorce one another both should be incapable of remarriage.' * In later ages ' Hansard, vol. cxlvi. pp. 634, •• He further directed the separa- 682. tion of the parties, their confinement * Ibid., vol. cxlv. p. 1104. in a convent, and the application ' For the Roman law, see Bryce, of two-thirds of their property to Studies in History and Jurispru- their children. See Bryce, ihid,., dence, vol. ii. pp. 386-416. vol. ii. p. 408. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. - 95 the influence of the Eeformation gradually impaired the chap, ii. notion that all marriages were indissoluble ; but in 1857. Catholic countries the old view remained, and marriage was declared indissoluble by the Council of Trent/ even in the case of the adultery of one of the parties to it. The theory of the Eoman Church, indeed, which would have been intolerable if it had been rigidly carried out, was modified by its practice. Though the Church held that marriage was indissoluble, it conceded that antecedent circumstances might make it invalid. Marriages, for instance, could only be legally contracted where there was no consanguinity or aifinity between the parties. The marriage of remote cousins, even of cousins in the eighth and ninth degree,^ unless there was a dispensation from the Pope, became under the doctrine invahd ; and this doctrine was pushed so far that Lord Coke was able to cite one case, in which a marriage was 'declared null because the husband had stood godfather to the cousin of his wife.^ Such a deci- sion was a tolerably strong proof that the Church itself was aware that, in certain cases, expedients must be found for dissolving a theoretically indissoluble union. After the Eeformation, the view which the Church of Eome had adopted was naturally questioned by the Eeformers. Henry VIII. and Edward VI. issued com- missions on the subject; and the commissions, under the presidency of Archbishop Cranmer, enumerated a great number of causes for which they thought divorces should be granted.'* Notwithstanding Arch- * The Council of Trent declared and Jurisprudence, vol. ii. p. 418. all marriages illegal which were not ^ See Lord Chancellor Cranworth celebrated before a priest. It marks, in Hansard, vol. cxlii. p. 402. therefore, the final transition from ^ See Lord Cranworth, ibid., vol. the old Roman view of marriage as cxlv. p. 484. a voluntary union to the ecclesias- * Ibid., vol. cxlvii.. p. 719 and tical view of it as a Divine institu- p. 724, where an extract from the tion. See Bryce, Studies in History Reformatio Legum Ucclesiasticarum 96 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. II. bishop Cranmer's report, however, the law remained ^1857r unaltered, and marriage remained in the Eeformed Church of England,^ as it had been before the Eeforma- tion, practically indissoluble. The Eeformed Church, indeed, like the Church of Eome, gave a certain measure of relief. Where dif- ferences occurred between husband and wife, either from the adultery of the one, or from the gross cruelty of the one to the other, the ecclesiastical courts were in the habit of granting a divorce a mensa et thoro. Where, again, one party complained that the other was physically incapable of contracting marriage, or where it was shown that the two parties were within the degree of consanguinity prohibited by the Canon Law and still embodied in our Prayer Book, the ecclesiastical courts were in the habit of granting what was some- times inaccurately called a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. In the latter case the court really and in effect annulled the marriage ; and the parties were of course free to marry again. In the former case, the courts merely released the parties from the burdens and obligations of matrimony : but the marriage itself was not dissolved, and the parties were not free to enter on other matri- monial alliances. Such was the state of the law up to 1857. For three centuries, however, the very rich and the very great had not acquiesced in it. Prom the days of Lord Northamp- ton, who in 1550 obtained a divorce from his vifeamensa et thoro, and who, after procuring the divorce, married another lady and subsequently obtained a private Act of Parliament sanctioning what he had done, rich men who had obtained a divorce in the ecclesiastical courts were stating the cases in which divorce ^ In Scotland, the courts very should be permissible is given. soon after the Reformation began Gibbon has an interesting passage to grant divorces. Bryce, Studies, on the marriage laws of the Empire Src, vol. ii. p. 433. in Hist., vol. viii. p. 59 seq. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 97 in the habit of applying to Parhament for permission chap. li. to enter into new marriages.^ Three or four private 1857. Acts according this permission were passed in the seventeen^ century. In the course of the eighteenth century at least one such Act, and in the first half of the nineteenth century at least two such Acts, were on an average passed each year ; two such Acts were passed in 1856, five in 1857. ' From the time when it was universally acknowledged that divorce by the ecclesiastical courts did not dissolve the vinculum of marriage ' — so said the Lord Chancellor, in introducing the Divorce Act in 1857 — ' about 200 or 250 Acts had passed enabling parties on account of the adultery of the wife, and, in some very few instances, on account of the adultery of the husband, to marry again.' ^ These BiUs, said the Attorney-General afterwards, had all ' originated in the House of Lords, and come down to [the House of Commons], sanctioned by the high authority of the Lords spiritual and temporal of the kingdom.' From 1703 'there was no recorded instance of any Bishop objecting in Parliament to the passing of any one of those Bills upon the ground that marriage by the law of England was indissoluble, and that [the law of England] was according to the rule of Scripture.' ^ Before passing these Acts, Parliament — or the House of Lords — was in the habit of insisting (1) that a divorce a mensa et thoro should have first been obtained from an ecclesiastical court, and (2) that an action for damages for criminal conversation should have been brought and * There was a distinction be- Parliament to do so. The distinc- tween these cases and that of Lord tion arose from a decision of the Northampton. In Lord Northamp- courts, at the end of Elizabeth's ton's case, he had contracted a reign, in Mr. Foljambe's case, to the second marriage, and obtained from effect that parties divorced a mensa Parliament a confirmation of that et thoro were not at liberty to marry marriage. In the other cases the again. Hansard, vol. cxlv. p. 486. parties had not married a second ^ Ibid., p. 486. time, but obtained leave from ' Ibid., vol, cxlvii. p. 725. VOL. I. H 98 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP.' II. sustained in a civil court. By a standing order of the 1857. House of Lords no Divorce Bill could be introduced which did not contain a provision against the marriage of the guilty parties ; but this clause, ^hich the standing orders rendered imperative, was uniformly struck out of the Bill in committee.^ While, then, in theory and in law, marriage was indissoluble in England, in practice the dissolution of a marriage was procurable by any one who did not shrink from applying to the ecclesiastical and civil courts, and who could afford the luxury of obtaining a private Act of Parliament. The great mass of people, however, naturally could not afford this expense ; and it followed that, while the rich man was able to escape from the consequences of an unfortunate marriage and to obtain leave to take to himself a new wife, the poor man was unable to do so. jir. In 1845 this anomaly was brought forcibly before the Maulers public by the Sentence of a wisc and wittyjudgc. At the judgment. Warwick Assizes in that year, a man was tried for and convicted of bigamy ; and in passing sentence Mr. Justice Maule addressed the prisoner in some such words as these : ' You have been tried and convicted by a jury of your countrymen for marrying this woman, your first wife being still alive. You allege that your first wife has deserted you, that she is living with another man, and that you required another wife for the care of your home and of your children. But, in these circum- stances, the course which you should have taken was plain. You should have instructed your solicitor to bringjan action for criminal conversation against your wife and her paramour, and to apply to the ecclesiastical courts for a divorce a mensa et thoro. On succeeding in this action and this suit, your solicitor would have placed you in communication with a parliamentary ' See Lord Brougham, Hansard, vol. exlvi. p. 206. THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 99 agent, who would have given you the necessary infor- chap, ii . mation how to proceed in procuring a private Act of 1857. ParUament dissolving your marriage and enabling you to marry again. You wiU perhaps reply that these pro- ceedings would have involved you in an expense of hundreds or even thousands of pounds, which, as a poor man, you were unable to afford. But I would have you to know that the law of England knows no distinction between rich and poor. Instead of taking the proper course, you have committed the offence for which you have been convicted to-day by a jury of your fellow- countrymen, and it is consequently my duty to pass sentence upon you. The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned foi' one day; and, as this is Thursday, and the assizes opened on Monday, you may go.' Eidicule occasionally is a greater force than argu- ment ; and Mr. Justice Maule's ridicule had the effect of drawing attention to the law of divorce more pointedly than any argument would have done. Within five years — for, even thus stimulated, opinion moved slowly — the Government found it necessary to appoint a Com- mission to inquire into the subject. Lord Campbell, who had just been made Lord Chief Justice of England, was placed at the head of the Commission, and other lawyers of eminence served upon it. The Commission, in due course, recommended that divorce by Act of Parliament should be discontinued, and that jurisdiction in matri- monial causes should be transferred from the eccle- siastical courts to a specially constituted civil court. Bills to give effect to these recommendations were intro- The ■duced in 1854, in 1856, and again in 1857. When the bw'IT Bill of 1856 was before the Lords, the Bishop of Oxford ^s"- carried an amendment prohibiting the marriage of a husband or a wife, who had broken the Seventh Com- mandment, with the woman or man with whom the H 2 100 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. G^^^- II; ofience had been committed. The Bill, thus amended, 1857. reached the Commons in the middle of July ; and Lord Palmerston, declaring the new clause to be ' cruel and immoral,' declined to assent to it, and the Bill was accord- Dhror ^^gV abandoned.^ The BiU was reintroduced by the Act of Chancellor soon after the meeting of the new Parlia- 1857 ment in 1857, with a clause expressly authorising the guilty persons to marry ; and the Archbishop of Canterbury, following the course which the Bishop of Oxford had pursued the year before, succeeded in pro- curing its amendment.^ But the Primate's triumph was only short-lived. A fortnight later, the Lord Chancellor brought up a new clause, rendering the co-respondent in a divorce case liable to a fine of 10,000/., and the Bishop of Oxford succeeded in enlarging it by making the guilty parties liable to fine or imprisonment as if they had been convicted of a misdemeanour.^ Lord Grey, who had supported the Archbishop of Canterbury a fortnight before, declared that, as provision had now been made for the adequate punishment of wrong- doing, he should no longer insist on the amendment which the Archbishop of Canterbury had introduced.* Lord Grey's assistance enabled the Government to restore the clause to its original shape,* and the Bill reached the Commons towards the end of July without the provision which had led to its abandonment in the previous year. It was natural that a measure, which some devout people thought oiFended against the law of God, should have provoked keen debate in a House where the Bishops of the Church of England still exercised a considerable authority. But it could hardly have been ' Hansard, vol. cxliii. pp. 251, indulgence to the guilty respondent. 710, 976. » Ibid., pp. 1413, 1414. On the " By a majority of 53 to 47. third reading, the punishment of Hansard, vol. cxlv. p. 830. The imprisonment was struck out of the amendment enabled the party on Bill. Ibid., vol. cxlvi. p. 216. whose petition the divorce had been * Ibid., p. 1416. granted, to marry, but refused this * Ibid., p. 1418. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 101 foreseen that it was destined to provoke much more chap. ii. formidable opposition in the Commons. Mr. Gladstone, 1857. who, on most subjects, was still vibrating between his Conservative sympathies and the Liberal opinions of his later years,^ had always remained the firm opponent of change when he thought that change assailed the religion of the country. He encountered the Divorce BiU under one great disadvantage. He had himself been a member of the Cabinet which had sanctioned the introduction of the BUI of 1854. But this circumstance, though it afforded a convenient weapon for an adversary in debate, was no obstacle to Mr. Gladstone. He pleaded for delay on the 24th of July ; he opposed the second reading of the Bill on the 31st in a speech of extra- ordinary eloquence and power ; he resisted, when beaten on the principle, clause after clause in committee ; and he only desisted from labours which, perhaps, have never been excelled .in Parliament, when a severe domestic bereavement prevented his further attendance in the House of Commons.^ But Mr. Gladstone's elo- quence had little or no effect on the result. Lord Palmerston met the charge of hurrying the BiU through Parliament with the laughing rejoinder that he was quite ready to sit through September if it was desired to have a full discussion of the details ; ^ and, except that the Government consented to one or two amendments, the chief of which excused the clergyman, who con- scientiously objected to do so, from celebrating the marriage of a divorced person, the BiU passed through aU its stages, and on the 21st of August was returned to the Lords.* 1 'His sympathies, lie himself and on Mr. Gladstone's opposition said, were with Conservatives, to it, which is worth referring to. his opinions with Liberals.' See See Morley's Life of Gladstone, Russell's Gladstone, p. 130. vol. i. pp. 568-572. * Lady Lyttelton, Mrs. Glad- ' Ashley's Palmerston, vol. ii. stone's sister, died in August 1857. p. 347. Mr. Morley has a very interesting * Hansard, vol. cxlvii. p. 1999. passage on the Divorce Act of 1857, 102 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. CHAP. II. Even then the measure was not safe. Lord Eedes- 1857. dale, who had been one of its chief opponents, and who, from his position as Chairman of Committees, exercised considerable influence, gave notice on the 20th that when this BiU came — as he understood it would come — from the Commons on the 21st, he should move that the amendments which the Commons had made in it should be taken into consideration on that day six months ; and, on the 21st, when the Bill actually reached the Lords, it was evident that the majority of the peers present were on the side of Lord Eedesdale, and not on the side of the BiU. Ministers in these cir- cumstances did not venture to ask the House to con- sider the amendments of the Commons, and Lord Gran- ville simply moved the adjournment of the House till the following Monday, the 24th. Even then, however,' it was uncertain whether the Government would be able to secure the attendance of a sufficient number of peers to defeat Lord Eedesdale. Fortunately, they were able to do so ; and bya very small majority — 46 votes to 44 — ^Lord Eedesdale's motion was rejected. The amend- ments of the Lower House were then substantially ac- cepted : the Commons subsequently waived their objec- tion to the slight points on which the peers still insisted, and the Bill became law.^ The Bill, which thus became law, transferred the powers of the ecclesiastical courts in divorce cases to a new court, authorised to grant either a divorce (a vin- culo matrimonii) or a judicial separation (a mensa et thoro). In order to diminish the possibility of collusion' between the parties, it authorised a public functionary to intervene in the suit subsequent to the decree of the court. The decision of the court was, therefore, a pro- visional judgment or a decree nisi, as the lawyers phrase it, to take effect at a given date if the Queen's Proctor 1 Sansard, vol. cxlvii. pp. 1885, 1962, 2036, 2088. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 103 did not intervene. It is interesting to note that, after chap. ii. all the heat which had been excited in these debates, 1857. the BiU made comparatively slight changes in the its practice of Parliament. It only extended to the poor ®*^°'^- - man the relief which Parliament had, for more than two centuries, accorded to the rich one. In doing this, it effected changes in procedure which were plainly desirable. It abolished the grave scandal of actions for criminal conversation ; and it got rid of the un- fortunate necessity of threshing out the unsavoury details, inseparable from divorce proceedings, before three separate tribunals. No doubt, if it simphfied the proceedings in each case, it concurrently increased the number of divorces ; but, however much good men may regret that there should be so many instances in which husbands and wives ^ find it necessary to obtain relief from the obligations which they have incurred by marriage, wise men will probably conclude that the use which has been made of the Act is the best proof of its necessity ; and that the cause of morality itself is less strained by dissolving than by maintaining a marriage ■■ The relief which was given to the wife was not equal to the relief given to the husband. The husband could obtain divorce on proof of the wife's misconduct. The wife could only gain relief when the misconduct of her husband was coupled with cruelty or desertion. A gradual series of decisions by the Divorce Court has enlarged the definition of cruelty, and the difference be- tween the position of husband and wife, though still great, is less marked than it was in 1857. Those who have read Mr. Hardy's novel, Tlie Woodlanders, will recollect that the main interest of that well-told story turns on this distinction in the Act of 1857. The heroine is advised that she cannot obtain release be- cause her husband had not been cruel enough ( Woodlanders, chap, xxxix.). It is no part of an historian's duty to give an opinion on a matter of law ; but thirty or forty years after 1857 the desertion of a wife by her husband for the purpose of living with an- other woman would, I believe, have been regarded as cruelty entitling a woman to a divorce. In Scotland, it should, perhaps, be added, the wife can obtain a divorce on proof of her husband's infidelity or deser- tion. In Ireland, on the . contrary, divorce is still procurable only through a private Act of Parlia- ment ; while, in the little island which is situated between Ireland and England, and where there are traces of both English and Scottish influences in the laws relating to- marriage, a judicial separation may be granted by the court ; but divorces can be effected only by Act of Tynwald. 104 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. 1857. The transfer of probate jurisdic- tion to the new court. naturaUy attracted a great Mr. Disraeli's statement to be deal of notice, and attention was actually the opposite of the truth, formally directed to it by Lord J. Hansard, vol. cl. p. 1206. liussell in the House of Commons 118 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. n. ispiracy to commit murder either within or without the ^liisT^ United Kingdom a felony punishable by imprisonment for hfe. In introducing the Bill, he was able to say that the attention of the French Government had been drawn to the indecent language of some of the addresses which had been published in the ' Moniteur,' and that the French Ambassador had placed in Lord Clarendon's hands a despatch in which Count Walewski had pleaded , that these addresses had been published through inad- vertence, and had added that ' he was ordered, on the part of the Emperor, to state that he regretted their publication.' ^ This apology smoothed the way for the prehminary reception of the measure. Mr. Kinglake,; indeed, who had already shown that he was no friend to the Emperor Napoleon, asked the House to refuse consideration to it till Count Walewski's despatch was answered;, but the House, moved by the moderate character of the Bill and the explanation of the Emperor, declined to accept the advice, and after two nights' debate passed the first reading of the Bill by a large majority.^ The measure which was thus introduced, besides removing a doubt ' whether a conspiracy by aliens in this country to murder another alien in a foreign country was an offence punishable by our laws,' ^ assimilated the law in Ireland to the law in Great Britain. In Ireland, a conspiracy to commit murder was a capital offence : in Great Britain it was a mis- demeanour punishable by a short period of imprison- ment. The Bill proposed to assimilate the law in the two countries, and make in each the offence a felony, punishable by penal servitude for life, or imprisonment for a shorter period.* The BiU, therefore, proposed to ^ Hansard, vol. cxlviii. p. 936. Department. Hansard, vol, cslviii. " 299 votes to 99. Ibid., p. 1078. p. 998. ' The words are Sir George * The text of the BiU is in Hanr Grey's, the Secretary for the Home sard, vol. cxlviii. p. 937. THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 119 diminisk the penalty in Ireland, and to increase the chap. ii. penalty in Great Britain. To the alteration of the Irish 1858. law, no real objection was made. To the alteration of the English law, it was objected that the whole course of criminal legislation during the preceding thirty or forty years had been directed to the reduction of punish- ments; and that experience had proved that lesser punishments had increased the chances of conviction, and had consequently discouraged instead of encourag- ing the commission of criine. "Why, then, it was argued, should the House of Commons reverse a policy which experience had shown to be wise, because a foreign power asked us to alter our laws ? ^ Nolumus leges Anglice mutari ^ — such had been the reply of our ancestors centuries ago. Why now should we be willing to change our laws at the dictation of a foreign potentate ? Thus, though the Government had secured a majority of nearly 3 to 1, the tone of the debate had not been entirely in its favour. The House was evi- dently sore at the neglect to answer Count Walewski's despatch and at the language of the French colonels. The tone of the House was reflected in the tone of the people out of doors. The public denounced the BiU because it was introduced, as they thought, at French dictation. They denounced the Government because it had not ofliicially rephed to the despatch of a foreign power. This dislike was at once manifest when, on the 19th of February, the debate on the second reading of the Bill took place. Mr. Milner Gibson, who had lost his seat at Manchester in the previous year, in the general massacre of the free traders, but who had since been ^ Hansard, toI. cxlviii. p. 957, and see Lord J. Russell's speech, ibid., p. 1039. 2 Ibid., p. 982. 120 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ,eHAP. II. returned by the borough of Ashton-under-Lyne, prb- 1858. posed an amendment expressing horror at the attempt on the Emperor's life, readiness to remedy any defect in the criminal law which had been proved, after due investigation, to exist, but regret that the Government had not thought it their duty to reply to Count Walewski's despatch before attempting to alter the law of conspiracy. The motion was at once seconded by Mr. Bright, who had shared Mr. Milner Gibson's defeat at Manchester, but who had since been returned by the great borough of Birmingham,^ and, after a debate which extended over two nights, was carried by a majority of 19.^ Tew divisions which have determined the fate of a ministry, perhaps no division of equal importance, has attracted fewer members.^ The fate of the Minister who, a few months before, had been confirmed in power by -an overwhelming majority at the poUs, was decided in a House from which nearly one member out of every three members was absent. Lord Palmerston owed his defeat to the absence of his friends, and not to the presence of his opponents. Yet that defeat was obviously procured by the same combination which had led to the dissolution of 1857. It was the union of the Conservatives with the free traders under Mr. Bright, with discontented Whigs like Lord John Eussell, and with men stUl hesitating on their future like Mr. Gladstone, that composed the majority of 1858, as it had composed the majority of 1857. But the reasons. Lord Pal merston defeated. ^ Hansard, vol. cxlviii. pp. 1741, •1-758.'- " By 234 votes to 215. Ibid., p. 1848. Aqcording to Mr. Greville, Lord Eversley, the late Speaker, thought that the Speaker should have declined to put Mr. Milner Gibson's amendment as inadmis- sible. 3rd Series, vol. ii. p. 169. It is hazardous to dissent from so high an authority as Lord Eversley ; but it is difficult to see how, under the then practice of Parliament, the Speaker could rightly have taken this course. ' The fate of Lord John Russell's Ministry in 1852 was decided in a House of only 265 members. Sist. of England, vol. v. p. 449, note. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 121 which had induced the country to reverse the decision chap. ii. of the House in 1857, made it hopeless to expect that 1858. it would reverse the vote of 1858 ; for, in 1857, Lord Pahnerston had been confirmed in power because the country recognised that, rightly or wrongly, he was maintaining the honour of England, while, in 1858, it almost unanimously considered that he was lowering the credit of the nation by yielding to the demands of France. Small as the House was which passed the decisive vote, ready as it might have been to afford the Minister a way of escape by passing a vote of confidence, the Cabinet at once decided to resign office. Two reasons, which had nothing to do with the fateful division, influenced its decision. It avoided, in the first place, by its resignation, a debate on Lord Clanricarde's appointment, on which it was almost certain that it would have encountered a second defeat ; and, in the next place, its temporary retirement, so it was hoped, might afford an opportunity for recombining the discordant sections of the Liberal party either under Lord Palmerston himself or under some other chief. Though, then, the Queen hesitated, in the first instance, to accept the resignation of her Minister, and though her hesitation was justified by the advice of Lord Derby, who begged her to take twenty-four hours for consideration before definitely charging him with the formation of a new Government,^ Lord Palmerston and his colleagues adhered to their decision, and Lord Lord Derby had no alternative but to comply with the seeoli Queen's commands, and for the second time undertake ministry, the conduct of a Government in a hostile House of Commons. The personnel of the new Cabinet was arranged without much difficulty. Lord Derby in the 1 Ashley's Palmerston, vol. ii. vol. iv. p. 190 ; Hansard, vol. cxlix. p. 356 ; Martin's Prince Consort, p. 24. 122 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, OHAP. 11. first instance endeavoured to avail himself of the 1858. services of some of the men who stood outside both the great parties of the State, and applied for assistance to Mr. Gladstone, the Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Grey. ' They did not, however, think it consistent with their position to render ' him the aid which he required ; ^ and the new Minister was consequently forced to confine himself to the narrow circle of his immediate supporters. Lord Derby himself became First Lord of the Treasury ; Mr. Disraeli resumed the lead of the House of Commons- as Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Lord Malmesbury, Lord John Manners, Mr. Spencer Walpole, and Mr. Henley returned to the offices which they had held in 1852, Sir F. Thesiger, who became Lord Chelmsford, was made Lord Chancellor. Two other appointments- excited more interest. Lord Derby's eldest son, Lord Stanley, who, though young in years, was already dis- playing prudence and ability, was sent with universal approval to the Colonial Office; Lord EUenborough, the briUiant orator, who had been recalled from the Governor-Generalship of India in 1844, assumed the- duties of the Board of Control. The new Ministry was respectable both from the ability and the character of the majority of its members ; it was weak from the circumstance that it reflected neither the views of the House nor those of the country. It was to the interest of aU parties, however, that it should not be immediately disturbed, and that time should be sufiered to elapse before it should be ejected from the power with which it had been temporarily entrusted. Yet it was not quite clear that it would be possible to extend to it this measure of grace. Critical ' Sansard, vol. cxlix. p. 25 ; and to proceed to tlie Ionian Islands to- cf. Morley's Zi/e o/GWs— ^-^ — - ministry of the day reflects the opinion of the majority 1858. of the House of Commons. Occasionally, however, tion of either the will of the Sovereign, or the defeat on a par- Derby ticular question of a minister with a majority ordinarily in 1858. at his disposal, has led to a practice inconsistent with this theory. Thus Mr. Pitt in 1783, and Sir Eobert Peel in 1834, undertook the responsibilities of office with the knowledge that the existing House of Commons was opposed to their policy. In the one case, the Minister, defeated over and over again in the House, was able to reverse the sentence of the electors' repre- sentatives by appealing to the constituencies them- selves; in the other, the Minister, unable to obtain sufficient support in the country, was compelled to abandon the task which he had chivalrously attempted. Lord Derby, however, affords the only instance of a statesman who, on three occasions, has attempted to carry on the work of government with only a minority of the House of Commons to support him. In 1852, the collapse of the Liberal Administration, which resulted from the dismissal of Lord Palmerston, imposed on him this task ; in 1866, the death of Lord Palmers- ton, and the defeat of Lord EusseU's Eeform BUI, again forced him to take office ; and in 1858, the period at which this History has now arrived, the defeat of Lord Palmerston on the Conspiracy Bill left him hardly any THE HISTORY OP TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 151 1858. alternative but to obey the Queen's commands, and to ^Yn^' undertake the duty of attempting to carry on the government of the country. It would be ungenerous not to acknowledge that, on ■each occasion. Lord Derby and his colleagues were able to achieve a certain measure of success. They con- ducted the work of administration with skiU, and they placed measures of importance on the Statute-book. But it would, at the same time, be foUy to ignore the fact that the experiment in each case proved that an administration which has not a majority at its back •can neither enforce its principles nor sustain its credit. Instead of steering direct to the port to which it would go, it has to trim its sails to catch any favourable gusts which may reach it from any point of the political ■compass, and which may save it from drifting on to the rocks of destruction. In forming his second Government, Lord Derby was well aware of the difficulties which were inevitably associated with his enterprise. He professed, indeed, to be overwhelmed with a sense of their magnitude.^ And this profession was not the diffident expression of a statesman suddenly called to high office. It obviously pointed to the circumstances under which his Adminis- tration was formed. Both Lord Palmerston's promises and the country's expectations compelled Lord Derby to deal with two subjects — the future government of India and parliamentary reform — which, if he had been supported by a majority, he would have de- clined to touch. In opposition, indeed, he had argued that, while India was in a state of revolt, it was not expedient to divert attention from military measures to ' the constitution of the executive Ad- ministration at home.' In office, he was forced to acknowledge that the contrary decision of the House ^ Hansard, vol. cxlix. p. 23. 152 THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. *^ni^' ^^ Commons had compelled him to reconsider this; . — ■ opinion, and that the Government was already framing 1858. g^ j^g^ India Bill.^ Again, in his private capacity, he- thought that the Eeform Act of 1832, ' with aU its- anomalies and all its imperfections, [had] given the country [an adequate] representative system.' Yet, in his official capacity, he admitted that the expectation of the people and the promises of successive Governments- imposed on him the duty of attempting to deal with the question of parliamentary reform.^ Thus, at the very outset of his Administration, his weakness in the- House of Commons compelled him to discard his old. opinions. Difficult as his task was, it was obviously hopeless if he did not bring himself to some extent into- line with the views of his opponents. The So far as parliamentary reform was concerned,. Govern- ^ ., , _^ •' , ^ , ment of some delay was possible. JN o one could be so unreason- ° '*■ able as to suppose that a new Government, unexpectedly introduced to power, could be ready to deal at a moment's- notice with so difficult and complicated a subject. On. this point, therefore, there was no expectation that the^ Government would be prepared with a measure during the current Session. The other question, however,. did not admit of similar delay. The Bill of Lord Pahnerston's Government for regulating the future- government of India had actually been introduced,, it had made some progress, and Lord Derby and his- colleagues had at once to consider whether they would take up that BiU or replace it with another. Lord The change which Lord Palmerston had proposed ton's to make may be concisely stated. He had desired to transfer the political functions of the old East India Company, which since 1784 had, to some extent,, been supervised by the Board of Control, to a president and council of eight members appointed directly by the ^ Hansard, vol. cxlix. p. 40. ' Ibid., p. 42. BiU. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. 153 1858. Crown. The president was to be a member of the *^Sf^' Government of the day, and the organ of the Cabinet on all matters relating to India ; the council was to be composed of persons who had either been directors of . the Company, or who had served in India either in a civil or military capacity, or who had resided there for a certain number of years. The council was to hold office for eight years, one-fourth of its number retiring by rotation at the close of every second year. The decision of the president was, in nearly every case, to be final ; but the members of the council, if they differed from their chief, were to have the right of recording their own opinions on the minutes. On financial questions, however, the council was to exercise a direct power of control, and the president was not to act without the concurrence of at least four of its members. The army of the East India Company was to be transferred to the Crown, but the conditions of ser- vice were not to be altered by the transfer ; and the soldiers were to be entitled to claim their discharge if they objected to the change. The Civil Service of ' India was to be recruited, as it had been recruited during the preceding five years, by open competition ; but cadetships, the patronage of which had been divided between the Board of Directors and the President of the Board of Control, were in future to be filled up alternately by the president and his council, a certain number of them being reserved for the sons of civil and military officers who had served in India.^ The proposal — or rather the knowledge that some Mr. Stuart Mill's such proposal would be made — naturally aroused the apology opposition of the old East India Company ; and the oJ^pany. Company, which in the hour of its trial had the advantage of numbering great men among its servants, entrusted its defence to a man who holds the chief 1 Hansard, vol. cxlviii. pp. 1276-1292 ; see especially pp. 1284-1287. 154 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. *^ni^' P^^^® among the economists of the nineteenth century, — ■ — - and who produced an apology for his employers which 1858. takes high rank among the great State papers of the world. The petition, which Mr. J. S. Mill drew up for presentation to Parliament, was based on the broad facts that the old Company had acquired and maintained an empire without cost to the Crown ; that it had es- .tablished in India a government which had not only been one of the purest in intention, but one of the most bene- ficent in act, ever known among mankind ; and that it had done its duty to the public at home and to the people of India. Mr. J. S. MiU declined to believe that any party could contemplate vesting the home portion of the government in a minister of the Crown unassisted by an experienced council ; and he proceeded to argue that no new council could have the authority which antiquity and history gave to the directors. A council nominated by the Crown, many of its members owing their position to the individual minister whom it was their duty to control, could never act with the independence of a body in whose selection the Crown had exercised no preponderating voice ; ^ and the existing system, under which despatches were drafted by the directors and revised by the President of the Board of Control, was more calculated to produce real efficiency than a new system under which despatches would be framed by a minister and revised by the council, for 'the mind is called into far more vigorous action by being required to propose than by merely being called on to assent.' It was equally unwise, so the petition contended, to limit the number of the council. Even the present board of eighteen members did ' not contain all the varieties of knowledge and experience desirable in such a body.' Such were some of the arguments of this remark- 1 Since 1853 one-third of the directors had been nominated by the Crown. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 155 able State paper. It will be seen that it advocated ^^^' that the council should be large instead of small, that — ■ — ' it should be independent instead of owing its origin ^^^^' to the Crown, that it should be an initiating and not a mere controlling body. The arguments which ran through the petition were naturally re-echoed in debate, and may be found restated in the discussion of the petition in the House of Lords and in the debate on the first reading of Lord Palmerston's Bill in the House of Commons. Whatever effect, however, the arguments of .the petition may have had on men's minds, they produced little or no impression on the votes of Lord Palmerston's supporters, and the motion for the first reading of the India Bill was carried by a very large majority.^ On the very day, which succeeded this victory. Lord Lord Palmerston's defeat on the Conspiracy Bill involved india Bill, his resignation. His successors, in dealing with the government of India, decided on paying more deference to the arguments contained in the petition. In framing a. new Bill, they were influenced by the reasoning of that document. Like Lord Palmerston, they determined to transfer the government of India from the Company to a parliamentary minister assisted by a council ; they decided that the high functionary who was to preside over the council should ' occupy the rank and fulfil the duties of a Secretary of State.' It was, however, in the constitution of the council, and not in the title of its chief, that the true difference between the two measures was to be discovered. In Lord Palmerston's BiU the council was to consist of only eight persons, appointed by the Crown; in Lord Derby's BiU the council was enlarged to eighteen members, half of whom 1 The petition is reprinted in ex- pp. 1121-1164; the debate in the tensoinliansardy-vol. cxWiii.jAppen- Conimons, on the firgt reading of dix. The debate in the Lords, which Lord Palmerston's Bill, in ibid., was raised in the Company's favour pp. 1276, 1372, 1607 ; the division by Lord Grey on presenting the in ibid., p. 1715. petition, will be found in ibid.. 156 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. III. 1858. were to be nominated by the Crown from persons who had experience in India, and the other half of whom were to be elected. Four of the elected members were to be chosen by a constituency consisting of persons who had served in India for a certain time, or who held a certain amount of Indian stock. The other five were to be chosen by five great commercial communities : the city of London, the city of Manchester, the town of Liverpool, the city of Glasgow, and the town of Belfast.^ The It is difficult to understand how any body of intelli- to u"*^""^ gent men could have either constructed or approved so fantastic a scheme. It did not meet the objections of those of their number who thought that the Bill of their predecessors was ' an act of spoliation.' ^ It only partially met the argument of the East India Company, that the council should be independent, since a moiety of its members were to owe their appointments to the Crown. Nor was it easy to imagine a worse system of election than that which was contemplated by the BiU. There was no obvious ground for entrusting five great cities with the task of choosing a large section of the governing body of India ; and it was almost certain that the men on whom their choice feU would be inclined to pay more attention to the commercial interests of the United Kingdom than the social inter- ests of the Indian people. There was something even more grotesque in the proposal that another section of the council should be elected by old Indian officials and by Indian stockholders. A constituency composed of such materials would necessarily have neither cohesion nor policy : its existence might possibly give a spurious value to Indian securities, as some persons might be induced to buy them for the sake of the vote which they carried, just as some persons are ready to subscribe to ' See Mr. Disraeli's speech in Hansard, vol. cxlix. pp. 818-825. ' Lord Malmesbury's opinion. Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, p. 416. THE HISTOBY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 157 certain charities for the sake of having a voice in the *^Sj^' election of those entitled to benefit from their funds. ■ — ■ — • Men of sense, indeed, at once protested against these ■'^^^^■ strange provisions. The Prince Consort showed his usual perspicacity by urging the Government to reconsider them before their publication.^ Mr. Bright, after their production, declared that ' the proposition that four or five large cofistituencies should elect those councillors savoured of what was generally called clap-trap.' ^ It would have been difficult to find two persons representing more opposite poles of thought in 1858 than the Prince Consort and Mr. Bright, and it is only strange that objections which occurred to everyone out- side the Cabinet should not have prevented the Cabinet itself from putting forward an inadmissible proposal. It was, however, the misfortune of Lord Derby in Lord 1858 that he had entrusted the Board of Control, and in borough's consequence the preparation of the new India BiU,- to a '=^=''^acter. statesman whose judgment was as defective as his abilities were brilliant. In one sense, indeed, Lord EUenborough had especial qualifications for the . task which was allotted to him. He was one of the first public men in England to perceive the necessity of transferring the government of India to the Crown ; and he was one of the few leaders of his party who was not prepared to defend the old Court of Directors. These views left him free to frame a rational measure. But Lord EUenborough was one of those men in whom intellectual brilliance is marred by defective judgment, and whose overweening confidence in their own powers prevents them from either courting or accepting the criticisms of others. He was thus led to frame the whimsical scheme which his colleagues agreed to accept from him, but which it was soon plain had no chance of 1 lAfe of Prince Consort, vol. iv. ' Hansard, vol. cxlix. p. 844. p. 201. 1858. 158 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ^^^- acceptance from anyone else.^ It looked very much as if the new Government would be overwhelmed by the universal contempt with which their chief legislative measure was received. If the Liberal party had been a united body, such a result would in aU probability have ensued. But the Liberal party in 1858 was in a state of disorganisation. Lord Palmerston was at enmity with Lord John Eussell ; Lord John was jealous of Lord Pahnerston ; and the Eadicals had little love for either leader. The confusion in the Liberal ranks was increased by the strange un- popularity in which Lord Palmerston was suddenly involved. The man who in 1857 had achieved an unexampled personal triumph had become in 1858 ' an object of bitter aversion ' to his former followers and adherents.^ Many of these men desired to prevent his return to power ; many others wished to find some means of reconciling the competing claims of Lord Palmerston and Lord John EusseU ; but aU of them saw clearly that, until these differences were healed, it was undesirable to eject the new Ministry from the offices to which they had so lately succeeded. Lord John In these circumstances some expedient had to be proposal, found for defeating the Bill without destroying the Ministry. The experience of Lord John Eussell devised a suitable arrangement. He suggested to the House, immediately after the Easter recess, that a measure of such magnitude, which it was desirable to remove from the conflict of party, could be more con- veniently discussed if the principles on which it was to be founded were first laid down in resolutions settled in committee. Mr. Disraeli at once accepted a proposal which gave him a chance of extricating himself from an embarrassing position, and even sug- 1 Greville, 3rd Series, vol. ii. p. 182. ^ Ibid., p. 199. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 159 gested that there would be advantage if the resolutions ^^|^' were framed bv so eminent an authoritv as Lord John — • — ' himself. This suggestion, however, was at once rejected by Lord John Eussell, and by the House, which rightly insisted that the responsibility of initiation must rest with the Executive Government ; and after a short discussion Mr. Disraeli accordingly undertook to frame the necessary resolutions, and to bring them before the House in a fortnight's time.^ In the resolutions which the Government thus Thereso- framed, some deference was shown to the objections which their original proposal had elicited. The House was invited to affirm that (1) the government of India should be transferred to the Crown ; ^ (2) that the powers of the East India Company and of the Court of Directors should, in future, be exercised by a Secretary of State ; ^ (3) that the creation of an additional Secretary of State should be authorised for the purpose ; (4) that the Secretary of State should be assisted by a council of not less than twelve and not more than eighteen members ; * (5) that the majority of members of the council should have served in India for a term of years to be fixed by the statute ; ^ (6) that the council should be partly nominated by the Crown and partly elected f and (7) that the elected members should be chosen by the holders of Indian stock and by persons who had served in India.'^ The first five of these resolutions were adopted, after some debate, without much alteration. The House, indeed, preferred to substitute the words 'a responsible minister of the Crown ' for a Secretary of State;® to fix the number of the council at not less than twelve and not more than fifteen ; ^ and to enlarge 1 Hansard, vol. cxlix. pp. 858- ' Ibid., p. 1989. 877. ■ ' I6id., p. 2018. » Ibid., p. 2047. ' Ibid., p. 2036. » Ibid., p. 2177. « Ibid., p. 317. * Ibid., vol. cl. p. 318. ' Ibid., p. 1988. 160 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ^^^^' the qualification of the councillors by making residence — ' — ' as well as service in India a qualification for office.^ 1858. g^^ ^Yi,e real division of opinion arose on the last two resolutions. The sense of the House seemed on the whole to be in favour of making the council partly- elective ; but it obviously regarded with great dis- favour the curious constituency which the Government had suggested, and it ultimately evaded the proposition, and directed that a BiU should be introduced in con- formity with the resolutions that had already been carried.^ The Oudh Before this decision had been arrived at, a whoUv proelama- ttu-- • f tion. unexpected event had shaken the Mmistry to its foun- dations, and involved the resignation of the member of the Cabinet primarily responsible for the afiairs of India. In March, Lord Canning sent home a draft proclamation, which reached London on the 12th of April, in which he proposed to declare to the people of Oudh that, with certain exceptions, ' the proprietary right in the soil of the province is confiscated to the British Government, which will dispose of that right in such manner as it may deem fitting.' To those chiefs who made immediate submission. Lord Canning pro- mised that their lives and honour should be safe ; but he added that, for any further indulgence, they must throw themselves on the justice and mercy of the British Government. When Lord Canning sent this proclamation home, he was not aware of the fall of Lord Palmerston's Administration ; and in a private letter to Mr. Vernon Smith, who he assumed was still President of the Board of Control, he said that he had intended to accompany the proclamation with an explanatory despatch, but that his time had been .so fully occupied that he had been prevented doing ^ Hansard, vol. cl. p. 1990. ^ Ibid., p. 2251, and see Report of Resolutions, ibid., p. 2253. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 161 •so.^ Unfortunately — to use the mildest epithet which it ^?ff^- is possible to employ — Mr. Vernon Smith neglected to — ■ — - -communicate this private letter to Lord EUenborough. His omission to do so did not justify Lord EUenborough in condemning a document which he only imperfectly understood. He might have assumed that Lord Canning — whose conduct had gained him the nickname of ' Clemency ' Canning — was not likely to err on the side of severity ; and he might, at any rate, have concluded that an agent at a distance from London, if called on to deal with a crisis of unexampled magnitude, should be heard in his defence before he was condemned. If generosity to Lord Canning were required by the ordinary rules of conduct, it might specially have been expected from Lord EUenborough. For Lord EUenborough had held the same high position which Lord Canning was fiUing. He knew, as hardly any other man in the country knew, the difficulties and anxieties inseparable from the post ; and he had bitterly resented his own treatment by the Government of the day.^ Un- warned, however, by his own experience, and placing the most literal interpretation on Lord Canning's words, Lord EUenborough proceeded to address to Lord Canning one of the severest lectures ever em- bodied in a public despatch to a distinguished func- tionary. It began by expressing the apprehension Lord that this decree, threatening the disinherison of a people, boiongh's w^ould throw difficulties almost insurmountable in the despatch, way of the re- establishment of peace ; it proceeded to condemn, in language as strong, as it was unwise, the conduct of Lord Dalhousie in annexing Oudh, declaring that we cannot but in justice consider that those who resist our authority in Oudh are under very different -circumstances from those who have acted against us in 1 Hansard, vol. cl. p. 324. ' See Sir Robert Peel, by Parker, vol. iii. p. 15 seq. VOL. I. M 162 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP, provinces which have been long under our government ; ^ -^ — ^^— ' and that, consequently, the hostilities which have been 1858. carried on in Oudh bear rather the character of legitimate war than that of rebeUion. After referring to the more merciful amnesties of other rulers. Lord EUenborough proceeded : ' You have acted upon a different principle ; you have reserved a few as deserving of special favour, and you have struck with what they will feel as the severest punishment the mass of the in- habitants of the country. We cannot but think that the precedents from which you have departed wiU appear to have been conceived in a spirit of wisdom superior to that which appears in the precedent you have made.' ^ It is strange that any man in Lord Ellenborough's position should have brought himself to pen these phrases of rash indiscretion and studied insult. It is stiU more strange that any minister should have committed him- self to such language without consulting the Cabinet to- which he belonged.^ Possibly he may have imagined that a secret despatch would not be made public,, and that the reflections on Lord Dalhousie's policy, and the serious rebuke to Lord Canning himself, would be reserved for Lord Canning's own eyes. But even privacy could not have justified such expressions or such censure ; and privacy, it might have been foreseen, was not possible. On the 6th of May the ' Times ' published in its columils a copy of Lord Canning's proclamation. The proclama- ^ The present writer will not be (withtheadditionalclause, to which thought to be defending Lord reference is made' in the succeeding Dalhousie's policy by anyone who paragraph of my text) will be found wUl have the goodness to refer to in the Times of the 6th, Lord EUen- his remarks on it in Hist, of England, borough's reply in the Times of the vol. vi. p. 260 seq. ; but he can find 8th, of May, 1858. Of. Bansard, noexcuseforaPresidentof theBoard vol. cl. p. 599 seq. of Control becoming the apologist ^ Lord Malmesbury distinctly of insurrection in a province which, states that neither the proclamation rightly or wrongly, had been trans- nor the despatch was laid before ferred to the Company's dominions. the Cabinet. Memoirs of an Ex- ^ Lord Canning's proclamation Minister, p. 434. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 163 tion thus published was not an exact copy of the draft ^^f ^' which the Government had received. It contained an ■ — ■ — - additional paragraph, which Lord Canning had been ^®^®" induced to add to it prior to its publication, but after he had despatched the original draft to his employers in London.^ This additional paragra,ph promised large indulgences to all who ' shall promptly come forward and give to the Chief Commissioner their support in the restoration of peace and order.' The proclamation, therefore, which was actually issued, was less sweeping than that which Lord Ellen- borough had undertaken to criticise. On the day on which it appeared in the ' Times,' Mr. Bright asked the Secretary to the Board of Control whether the procla- mation which had thus been published had been issued Qnestions in accordance with instructions from this country; ment. and, if not, whether the Government had since issued any direction in connection with it. The Secretary, Mr. H. Baillie, in accordance with instructions which he had personally received from Lord EUenborough before going down to the House, replied that the Government had received from Lord Canning, some three weeks before, a draft proclamation which, with the exception of a single paragraph, appeared to be identical with that published in the ' Times ; ' that the proclama- tion had been considered by her Majesty's Governnient, and that a despatch had been addressed to Lord Canning expressing the views and opinions of the Government upon it. That despatch and the proclamation would be laid: upon the table. Mr. Bright was not satisfied, however, with this answer, and expressed a hope that the Govern- ment would at once acquaint the House with the tenour of the despatch. Indiscretion is perhaps infectious. ^ Hansard, vol. cl. p. 754. This effects of the proclanlation. Pari, additional paragraph was inserted Papers, 1858, reprinted in Times, after Sir James Outram had drawn 22nd of May, 1858. Lord Canning's attention to the M 2 164 THE HISTORY OF TWENTif-FIVE YEARS. 1858. CHAP, ji^i any rate, Mr. Disraeli at once rose and said that the Government had sent out a despatch disapproving Lord Canning's policy ' in every sense.' ^ •It is difficult to exaggerate the sensation created by this incident. It was at once seen that Mr. Disraeli's statement, that the Government had openly expressed its disapproval of Lord Canning's policy ' in every sense,' would make Lord Canning's position, difficult as it had hitherto been, impossible. And Lord Canning was not the only high officer whose position was becoming untenable. As soon as Lord Ellen- borough had authorised Mr. Baillie to lay the papers before the House of Commons, the inconvenience, or rather inexpediency, of publishing the despatch occurred to the Prime Minister ; and, at a conference between him, Mr. Disraeli, and Lord EUenborough, it was decided, instead of publishing the whole despatch, to issue only extracts from it. How Lord EUenborough could have acquiesced in this decision, it is difficult to imagine; for, by his instructions, Mr. Baillie had already laid the whole despatch on the table of the House of Commons, and copies of it had been privately sent to Lord Granville and Mr. Bright.^ The decision, however, had the strange consequence that, while the despatch was laid in extenso on the table of the House of Commons, only extracts from it were laid on the table of the Lords. Prudence in one House, imprudence in the other : such was the strange development of a strange proceeding. Lord It was evident that the matter could not be left in borough ^^^^ position. Lord Shaftesbury in one House, and resigns. Mr. Cardwcll in the other, announced their intention of bringing forward motions expressing strong disappro- bation of the premature publication by her Majesty's Ministers of the despatch. Confronted with these resolu- ' Hansard, vol. cl. pp. 180, 181. « Ibid., p. 323. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. 165 tions, Lord EUenborough decided to save his colleagues ^jjf '^^ by sacrificing himself, and placed his resignation in the — >— ' Queen's hands. It may be incidentally remarked that, ■'•^^^" as an ill-regulated consequence of an iU-regulated proceeding, he took the unusual course of writing to the Queen direct, instead of sending his resignation through the Prime Minister. No doubt, in doing so, he was within the letter of the Constitution, which in theory assumes all the servants of the Crown to be equal, and which is supposed to abhor the notion of a Prime Minister. But modern practice has so largely corrected the old doctrine, that it may be doubted whether any other minister in the nineteenth century ever acted, or whether any other minister will again act, in the manner in which Lord EUenborough resigned. On Lord EUenborough's resignation, Lord Derby made a new attempt to secure Mr. Gladstone's services as a member of his Cabinet. His first efforts were made through one of his colleagues, who was on terms of intimacy with Mr. Gladstone, and on terms of still closer intimacy with Sir William Heathcote, Mr. Glad- stone's colleague in the representation of his University. But Lord Derby's application was subsequently sup- ported by Mr. Disraeli, in a letter, which nearly justifies his later statement — that he almost went on [his] knees to Mr. Gladstone.^ It seems from this letter that Mr. Disraeli would have been prepared to resign the leader- ship of the House of Commons to Sir James Graham, if such an arrangement could have been made and would have facilitated Mr. Gladstone's return to the Conser- vative fold. But Sir James Graham in 1858 had no desire to return to official life, and decided on remain- ing in the comparative retirement of a private member ^ The letter is in Mr. Morley's Mr. Disraeli's description of it is in Life of Gladstone, -vol. i. p. 58 F. the ia/e of JFi76e»/oree, vol. iii. p. 70.. 166 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ^^^^- of the House of Commons, and Mr. Gladstone somewhat -^^ — ' stiffly rejected the overture that was made to him. jjg^?^®* Lord Derby thereupon decided on transferring to succeeded the place which Lord EUenborough had vacated, his sLn°eV own son — Lord Stanley, who, on the formation of the Ministry, had been made Secretary of State for the Colonies. Young in years — for he was not thirty when he attained Cabinet rank — Lord Stanley had already obtained an unusual reputation. He possessed, indeed, none of those attractive qualities which had made his father the Eupert of debate. His somewhat slow and thick speech disqualified him for public oratory ; but if his speeches bore no resemblance to his father's de- clamatory eloquence, or to the more brilliant and polished utterances which made Lord EUenborough one of the first orators of the day, they were marked by a fullness of knowledge, an accuracy of thought, and a sobriety of judgment which few men have ever displayed. Though, too, his birth and education connected him with his father's party, his opinions were more liberal than those which usually emanated from the front Conservative bench. Men there were who doubted whether he would ultimately gravitate to the Liberal party, whose views on many subjects he obviously shared, or whether he was destined to reconstruct the Conservative party on a broader basis. The event did not wholly justify either of these anticipations. For many years after 1858, Lord Stanley continued to exercise a moderating and salutary influence on Conservative policy. He ultimately parted from his old friends on a quarrel in which history wiU probably consider that he was right ; but his secession neither added to his reputation at the time nor to his influence afterwards. It became apparent that, if he was always prudent in counsel, he was sometimes timid in action ; and that he was deficient in the qualities which occasionally make men of less judgment THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 167 ■safer because they are bolder pilots in extremity, '^^j^^- Hence the world of politics, which at first, perhaps, ~— ■ — ' appraised Lord Stanley beyond his worth, attached too ^^^^' little credit to him afterwards, and men came to regard the statesman with indifference whom a few years before they would have been proud to follow as their leader. In Lord Stanley's room Lord Derby selected, for the Colonial Office, Sir E. Lytton Bulwer, a man who had already risen to a high position in the literary world, and whose novels, and perhaps poetry, will be read when his political achievements have passed into obhvion. As a debater, Sir Edward had none of those qualities which make men powerful in the House of Commons. Deafness, indeed, disabled him from attempting reply. But on set occasions, when careful preparation had furnished him for debate, few men made more effective or telling speeches. His appoint- ment added interest to a Ministry which already em- braced one great literary man in the leader of the House of Commons ; but it did not materially add to the strength of the Cabinet either in the council chamber or in the House. The changes in the Cabinet naturally affected the Themoi- whole situation. Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Cardwell, ^° ^° ^' indeed, both persevered in the motions which they had given notice that they would propose, and Lord Shaftesbury's motion, after a single night's debate, was defeated only by a narrow majority.^ In the Commons the debate on Mr. Cardwell's motion seemed at first to presage the defeat of the Government. As the discus- sion proceeded, however, the result became more and more doubtful. Many members saw that there was something indecent in making a question affecting the highest interests of 150,000,000 people the mere battle-ground of party. The arrival of some further 1 167 votes to 158. Hansard, vol. cl. p. 670. 168 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ^^^- despatches from India, in which Lord Canning vindicated '— ■ - " his own poUcy in a letter to Sir James Outram^ made the motion still more inopportune.^ At last, after a desultory conversation on the expediency of prolong- ing the debate. Lord Palmerston himself appealed ta Mr. Cardwell to withdraw his resolution. Mr. Cardwell assented to Lord Palmerston's suggestion ; and the House generally acquiesced in Mr. Bright's opinion, that, though the course thus taken would ' excite the amusement and perhaps the ridicule of the public,' it would commend itself to 'the solid judgment of the country.' ^ The India The decision had the effect of strengthening the position of the Government. It had escaped the con- sequences of a formidable attack, and it was tacitly acknowledged that its existence was assured for the remainder of the Session. It consequently became possible for it to press forward its chief legislative measure, and the second reading of the India Bill was carried without a division on the 24th of June.^ Its clauses were rapidly considered in committee, and on the 8th of July the Bill was read a third time and passed.* During the next fortnight it passed through all its stages in the House of Lords, and on the 2nd of August the Queen in closing the Session was able to announce that she had given her willing assent to the Act for transferring to her direct authority the govern- ment of her Indian dominions.^ In the shape which the Bill ultimately assumed, it represented a compromise between the measure which had been introduced by Lord Palmerston at the commencement of the Session, and that which Lord EUenborough had substituted for it. It was humorously ^ These despatches -will be found in ^ Ibid., vol. cl. p. 37, cli. p. 371. the Tijnes of the 22nd of May, 1858. * Ibid., p. 1096. » Hansard,Mo\. cl.pp. 1040,1042, ^ Ibid., p. 2370. 1055, 1056. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 169 said of it at the time that if not a very good Bill, it had ceased to be a very good joke.^ The Government of India was vested in a Secretary of State ; the Secretary of State was to be assisted by a council of fifteen members, of whom eight were to be appointed by the Crown, and seven by the Court of Directors of the old Company. Subsequent vacancies on the council were to be filled up alternately by the Crown and by the elections of the council.^ The members were to hold office during good behaviour. The India Bill, which was thus carried, is a remark- able instance of the good sense of Parliament. It prac- tically found a method for reconciling the conflicting views of Lord Palmerston and of his successors ; and, if it decided on proceeding a little more cautiously than Lord Palmerston desired, it swept away the absurd devices for electing a council. Time, however, has done something to vindicate Lord Palmerston's opinion. The council, which the Conservative Government wished to consist of eighteen, and which the House of Commons fixed at fifteen, has since been reduced to twelve members ; and expert opinion is in favour of a stiU further reduction of its numbers. Again, the power which was reserved to the council of filling alternate vacancies in its number has been abandoned ; and the councillors themselves, instead of being chosen for life, have been appointed only for ten years, though the term has been occasionally extended to fifteen years. Thus experience has tended to confirm the views of Lord Palmerston, and to discredit the views which were ex- pounded with so much ability by the old directors in the famous petition which Mr. John Stuart Mill had prepared. Judged by the result, the course which was suggested by the long administrative experience of 1 Time*, 22nd of June, 1858. 2 See the Act 21 & 22 Vict., cap. 106, sects. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. CHAP. III. 1858. 170 THE HISTOEY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ^^j^- Lord Palmerston has proved far more practical than ' — ■ — ' the alternative which the great philosopher propounded 1858. -Ypxth so much force, and supported with so many cogent arguments. Thus the old adage received a new illus- tration, ' A pint of practice is worth a peck of theory.' In the course of the debates on the India BiU, several questions of great importance were either directly raised or indirectly suggested. Mr. Bright, in the debate on the second reading, for example, expressed a strong opinion that the office of Governor- General should be abolished, and that India should be broken up into five presidencies, each communi- cating directly with the India Office at home.^ Mr. Bright's prediction, that his proposal in the course of time would win support, has not been ful- filled. Experience has shown that there is a good deal more to be said for degrading the presidencies of Bombay and Madras to the rank of lieutenant-governor- ships than for carving two more presidencies out of Northern India. A question of more immediate im- portance was raised by Mr. Gladstone on report. He proposed that ' except for repelling actual invasion, or under other sudden and urgent necessity, her Majesty's forces in the East Indies shall not be employed in any military operation beyond the external frontier of her Majesty's Indian dominions without the consent of Parliament to the purposes thereof.' ^ Lord Stanley somewhat incautiously assented to a clause which he declared, however, ' had not much binding force, since a governor-general, under the influence of strong feelings in favour of war, might apply a very broad interpretation to the phrase " sudden and urgent neces- sity." ' Lord Palmerston, on the contrary, vehemently denounced as unconstitutional a proposal which, at any rate, inconveniently reflected on his own policy ' Hansard, vol. cli. p. 343. « Ibid., p. 1008. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 171 towards Persia. The right of declaring war rested, so *^5^^" he argued, with the Crown, and to maintain that the pre- — ■ — ■ vious assent of Parliament was necessary was to intro- ■'•®^®* duce a principle destructive of the British Constitution. The words moreover of the resolution would apparently prevent the Government from moving any part of the Queen's forces in India, for the purpose of carrying on military operations in any other part of the world, without the assent of Parliament.^ This objection had so much force that, on the suggestion of the Solicitor- General, the clause was limited to the local Indian army, or, as the phraseology put it, to her Majesty's forces maintained out of the revenues of India.^ And in this shape the clause reached the Lords. Every day's consideration, however, confirmed the impression that there was force in Lord Palmerston's contention ; and ultimately Lord Derby introduced and carried a new clause forbidding the application of the Indian revenues to any military operations beyond the frontiers with- out the consent of Parliament, 'except for preventing or repelling actual invasion, or under other sudden and urgent necessity.' ^ The discussions on the India Bill occupied the Theques- greater portion of the Session of 1858. The advent, jew.° however, of a Conservative Government to power led to the solution of another problem, which had troubled Parliament for nearly thirty years. A new step in the direction of religious freedom was taken. A Con- servative Government in office, unsupported by a majority of the Commons, found itself unable to maintain the principle which most of its leaders had advocated in opposition ; and the Jew, for the first time, was admitted to the House of Commons. ^ ITansardjYol. cli.T^Tp.lOll-lOlS. became of real importance when " Ibid., p. 1016. the Abyssinian War of 1867 was ^ Ibid., p. 1696, and 21 & 22 undertaken. Vide infra, ch. xi. Vict., cap. 106, sect. 55. The clause 1858. 172 , THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ^^^^- Briefly stated, a member of Parliament in 1858 was required to take the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration.^ There was nothing in the words of the oath of allegiance to which a Jew could not subscribe ; but it was taken on the Four Gospels — in a manner, therefore, repugnant to him. The oath of abjuration, however, an oath which had long lost its meaning,^ contained the words, ' on the true faith of a Christian,' which had been expressly inserted in 1828 to exclude the Jew.^ As early as 1830, an attempt was made to remove this disqualification; but the second reading of the Bill was rejected in an unreformed House of Commons by a considerable majority.^ After the passing of the Eeform Act, the same measure, introduced by the same member, met with more success in the Lower House of Parliament ; but the relief, which was passed in the Commons both in 1833 and in 1834, was rejected by considerable majorities in the Lords,^ and, ' as the determination of the Lords was clearly not to be shaken,'^ the Commons forbore, for some years, to press a measure which, since no Jew had been ^ This, of course, was not true of J.: " My Lord, I am abjuring them the Quakers and of the members of in my mind." Chief Justice: "That sects who objected to take any oath, is not enough, Brother WiUes. and who had been allowed to sub- The statute requires the words to be stitut6 an affirmation for an oath. spoken by you. Although there be See Hist, of Eni/land, vol.iii. p. 359, no Pretender, and there have long note. ceased to be any descendants of the ^ Lord Campbell relates in his said James, you are bound with a Diary that, in 1855, Mr. Justice loud voice to abjure them. I am Willes presented himself before him sorry that the law should require to take the oaths. ' When the such a farce ; but, while the law judicial juror came to the oath of exists, the farce must be played." ' abjuration, he did not repeat the Life of Lord Campbell, vol. ii. words after the officer, who with p. 336. much emphasis was reading it. At ' See Hist, of England, vol. ii. last, the words being pronounced p. 380. by which he ought to have abjured * Hansard, 2nd Series, vol. xxiv. " the said James, and the descendants p. 785; May, Const. History of Eng- of the said James," I said, " Brother land, vol. ii. p. 181. Willes,youshouldrepeatthesewords '' Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. xx. after the officer of the court, that we p. 249, and vol. xxiv. p. 720. may know that you abjure King ^ May's Consi. fijsf., vol.iii. p. 181. James and his descendants." Willes, THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 173 chosen to represent any constituency, had apparently ^Sj^- only an academic importance. — -^ — ■ In ] 847 the question assumed a new shape. Baron •^^^^• Rothschild, popularly supposed to be the wealthiest man Both- in England, was chosen io represent the great City of efeotion London. This choice altered the conditions of the pro- ^^^ '^^ blem. Without creating the acute difficulties which had London, arisen eighteen years before from Mr. O'Connell's election for Clare, it threw on Parliament the responsibility of deciding whether a man should be excluded from the position for which he had been selected by a powerful constituency because his religious views were based on the teachings of only the first half of the Bible. In 1848 Lord John EusseU, who, it must be recollected, was also member for the City, made a fresh effort to remove the disabilities which excluded his own colleague from the House. Eelief was again granted by the Commons, but again refused by the Lords. In 1850 Baron Eothschild, who had hitherto made no application to this effect, presented himself at the table of the House and asked to be sworn. It was decided after some dis- cussion that a law which had been passed in 1839 for amending the law of evidence, and which enabled aU persons to be sworn in the manner most binding to their conscience, was applicable to his case, and he was allowed accordingly to be sworn upon the Old Testa- ment. He took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in the accustomed forms, but he omitted from the oath of abjuration the words ' on the true faith of a Christian.' He was directed to withdraw ; and the House, after some debate, decided that the words which he had omitted were part of the oath, and that he could not take his seat until he had been sworn in the exact words appointed by law:^ In 1851 another Jew, Mr. Alderman Salomons, was 1 Hansard, vol. cxiii. pp. 297, 769; May's Const. Mitt., vol. iii. p. 183. 174 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. CHAP, returned by another constituency. Like Baron Eoth- — — r^ — schild, he presented himself at the table and demanded 1858. tQ |-,g sworn ; and, like Baron EothschUd, he omitted the words, ' on the true faith of a Christian,' from the abjuration oath. He was ordered to withdraw; but, before the order was carried out, he actually spoke on the motion which preceded its adoption, and took part in one or two divisions. His conduct was pur- posely designed to enable the House to try in the law courts the question which had been discussed so long in the two Houses of Parhament ; and the Court of Ex- chequer formally decided that the words, which no Jew could take, were part of the oath, and that no authority short of a statute was competent to dispense with them.^ During the next five years the subject continued in this unsettled position. A majority of the House of Commons supported, while a majority of the Lords refused, any modification of the oaths which would enable a Jew to sit in Parliament. The leader of the Conservative party, indeed, was, on this subject, less tolerant than his own supporters ; and towards the close of the Session of 1857, to quote the language of the principal newspaper, ' went in at the Jews with aU the dash of a prize fighter sure of the day. . . . There was an exuberance of bad logic, a' recklessness of piety, and an insolence of personal allusion which seemed to imply that, on this occasion, he might say what he pleased.'^ Other men, however, were already asking how long the action of the Lords was to overcome the settled resolution of the Commons. An Act of Wil- liam rV. had empowered the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and all other bodies, corporate or incor- porate, to make statutes authorising the substitution of a declaration for any oath or afiirmation now required ^ Hansard, vol. cxviii. pp. 979, ^ See the Times, 11th of July, 1212 ; May's Const. Hist., vol. iii. 1857. p. 184. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 175 to be taken or made.^ Lord John Eussell, on the sug- '^fjf^' gestion of Sir Richard Bethell, who held the office of - — '^-— Attorney-General in Lord Palmerston's Administration, ■^^^®- asked the House to appoint a committee to consider whether, under the terms of this Act, it could frame a declaration to take the place of the oath of abjuration. The subject was elaborately discussed by the large and exceptionally strong committee which was then ap- pointed ; but the committee ultimately decided, by a narrow majority,^ that the Act could not bear the interpretation which the Attorney-General and Lord John Eussell had endeavoured to put upon it. It thus became obvious that the Legislature, and the Legis- lature alone, could determine the question, and that the Commons were powerless to solve it without the co-operation of the Lords. In these circumstances, Lord John again renewed The Bill the attempt to legislate which he had so often made. The opinion of the House of Commons on the subject was so clear, that the Bill which he introduced for the purpose passed its first and second readings without a division.^ It reached the Lords early in April.* The form in which it was drawn enabled the strongest partisan of the Church to vote for its second reading ; for the Bill, while amending the oath of abjuration, and consolidating it with the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, retained the words, ' upon the true faith of a Christian,' on which the whole controversy had turned, and only in a subsequent and separate clause directed the omission of the words when the oath was tendered to a Jew.^ It was therefore possible to contend, as Lord St. Leonards did contend, that the Lords might 1 .5 & 6 William IV., cap. 62 ; see ' Hansard, vol. cxlviii. pp. 499, especially sect. 8. 1118. * Pari. Papers, Session 1857, * Ibid., vol. cxlix. p. 946. vol. ix. p. 477. * The Bill will be found in Pari. Papers, 1857-58, vol. iii. p. 629. 176 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP, pass the second reading of the Bill, and discuss the - — ^ — question of relieving the Jews when the particular 1858. clause dealing with that subject came before the com- mittee. Lord Lyndhurst's suggestion was accepted by Lord Derby, and the Bill was read a second time.^ This concession, however, only postponed the decision for a few days. "When the Lords reached the clause reheving the Jews, they struck it out by a considerable majority. Perhaps the most remarkable sentence in the debate was that in which Lord Chelmsford, the new Lord Chancellor, closed his speech against the clause : ' My Lords, I trust that you will not fear still to pro- nounce that our " Lord is King, be the people never so impatient." ' Lord Chelmsford apparently forgot that the writer whom he was quoting was a Jew, and that ' the Lord ' to whom the quotation referred was the God of the Jews. It was perhaps more remarkable that three bishops, Villiers, Bishop of Carlisle, Hampden, Bishop of Hereford, and Thirlwall, Bishop of St. Davids, had the courage to support the clause.^ The question had now entered a new phase. As the Lords had passed the Bill, and merely struck out of it the clause which reheved the Jew, the Commons had the opportunity of considering the Lords' amend- ments. Lord John Eussell naturally proposed that the Commons should disagree with the Lords and restore the clause ; and the House, after accepting this motion, proceeded in accordance with its practice to appoint a committee ' to draw up reasons to be assigned to the Lords' for the disagreement. Mr. Duncombe, the member for Finsbury, at once proposed that Baron Eothschild should serve on the committee. He was * Hfl!?wa)'£i, vol. cxlix. pp. 1477-86. majority had suggested to Lord 2 Ibid., jjp. 1749-1794. The Eldon and other Tories in 1821, and division was : contents 80, non-con- have spoken of the 39 who had saved tents 119. The Lords might have the 39 Articles. Twiss, Life of repeated the joke which a similar Eldon, vol. ii. p. 416. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. 177 able to show that, early in the eighteenth century, Sir ^™^''- Joseph Jekyll had been appointed on a committee of ■ — . — secrecy before he had taken the oaths at the bar. There •^®^^' was, indeed, this difference between the case of Sir Joseph Jekyll and the case of Baron Eothschild. Sir Joseph had no objection to taking the oaths, and it was a mere accident that he had not taken them before he was selected to serve on the committee. The House, how- ever, had formally decided, at that time, that ' it was not necessary for a member to be sworn at the bar before he could be appointed a member of a committee upstairs.' The precedent was so strong that the Government did not venture to resist it ; and Mr. Buncombe's motion was carried.^ The Commons, therefore, showed that, if the Lords had the power of excluding Baron Eothschild fj-om sitting and voting in the House, they could not prevent him from serving on committees of the House. Eeasons for disagreeing with the Lords were duly Lord drawn up ; ^ they were adopted by the Commons ; they were delivered to the Lords at a conference ; ^ and, on ""'^^ the last day of May, the Lords met to consider them. Immediately on their meeting, Lord Lucan — a Conserva- tive peer, who is perhaps now chiefly recollected from the fact that he commanded the cavalry in the Crimean "War, and, in that capacity, was partly responsible for the blunder of the Balaclava charge — rose to propose a compromise. He suggested that either House should be empowered by resolution to determine the form of oath to be administered, in that House, by persons professing the Jewish religion. Lord Derby did not venture wholly to resist a suggestion which came from one of his own supporters ; * and it was ultimately decided that the 1 Hansard, vol. cl. pp. 336, 440. * Ibid., vol. cl. p. 1139 seq. Lord The names of several members of Derby himself, so I gather from a the Cabinet will be found among private letter from him in my pos- both the ayes and the noes. ses8ion,was more favourably disposed ' Ibid., p. 529. to this compromise than the terms 5 Ibid., p. 859. VOL. I. N Lucan's compro- 178 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. III. 1858. The com- promise adopted. Peers, while maintaining their own attitude on Lord John Eussell's Bill, should pass a separate measure afibrding relief on the lines which Lord Lucan had advocated. This course, indeed, made the Lords look a little foolish. They were declaring as their reason for disagreeing from one Bill that ' the denial and rejection of that Saviour in whose name the Legislature daily offers up its collective prayers for the Divine blessing on its councils, constitutes a moral unfitness to take part in the legislation of a professedly Christian community ; ' ^ they were autho- rising by the other Bill either House of Parliament to admit the persons whom they had thus proclaimed morally unfit. But the compromise, however illogical, was felt to be acceptable. It afforded, at any rate for the time, a solution of the question which had troubled Parliament for a quarter of a century. It prepared the way moreover for a more rational arrangement. Two years later, the resolution which the House of Commons passed at the commencement of each Session was turned into a standing order ; ^ and, in 1866, Parliament, taking a fresh step in advance, established a new oath, from which the words, ' on the true faith of a Christian,' were omitted. The door of the House of Lords was thus thrown open to the Jew ; ^ and the same wealthy and respectable citizen, who in the fifties had succeeded in taking his seat in the House of Commons, was soon afterwards raised to the Lords.* words which pledged them solemnly to abjure any intention of subvert- ing the present Church Establish- ment as settled by law. Hansard, vol. clxxviii. p. 24. The Bill, after several warm debates, passed the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords, ibid., vol. clxxx. p. 821. Early, however, in 1866, Sir George Grey, as the mouthpiece of Lord Russell's Government, brought in a Bill, which had been aimounced in the Speech from the Throne, ibid., vol. clxxxi. p. 26, substituting a short of his speech might lead its readers to believe. ^ Hansard, vol. cli. p. 1376, and Pari. Papers, 1857-58, vol. iii. p. 635. » Ibid., vol. clx. p. 1346. ' May's Const. Hist., vol. iii. p. 187, note, and 29 & 30 Vict., c. 19. * The Act of 1866 was the result of a measure proposed in 1865. In that year Mr. Monsell, a Roman Catholic, proposed to amend the oath imposed in 1829 on Roman Catholics by omitting from it the THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 179 1868. The history of this long struggle affords a striking f'HAP. proof of the change of thought which had gradually- taken place. The idea, which the nineteenth century had inherited from the eighteenth, that the full enjoy- ment of civil rights should be accorded only to those who professed the religion established by law, had dis- appeared with the repeal of the Test Acts in 1828, and the removal of the disabiUties of the Eoman CathoHcs in 1829. But the House of Commons before the Eeform Act, and the House of Lords from 1833 to 1858, .still refused to concede the full privileges of citizenship to all those who were outside the pale of Christianity. A Christian country should be governed, so it was thought, by a Christian Legislature, and no one who denied the truth of the Gospel story should have any share in framing its laws. If the Conserva- tive party in 1858 had remained in opposition, or if, on acceding to power, it had enjoyed the support of the House of Commons, there can be no reasonable doubt that the Peers would have continued to maintain their attitude of resistance. But continued resistance became impossible when Lord Derby undertook to conduct the government of the country with only a minority of the House of Commons to sustain him. He could no longer venture to withstand the repeated decisions of the Lower Chamber. He was obliged to choose between the surrender of his principles and the abandonment of his position. Even if Lord Lucan had not suggested a possible expedient for the solution oath applicable to Protestants and thus settled, till it was revived some Roman Catholics alike, and indeed to years afterwards in another shape by all persons who did not object to be the refusal of an atheist to take the sworn, for the different oaths in force, oath. It is remarkable that in the ibid., pp. 453, 456. This Bill was debates in 1865 and 1866 the con- carried by a very large majority troversy mainly turned on the Roman in the Commons (298 votes to 5), Catholic issue; and no one paid ibid., p. 1730, and was ultimately much attention to the fact that the passed by the Lords, ibid., and cf. measure of 1866, by a side wind, vol. clxxxii. pp. 1322, 2176. The opened the door of the House of controversy respecting oaths was Lords to the Jew. N 2 1858. 180 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ^?.^^- of the problem, some' means must have been devised for acceding to the wishes of the Commons. In opposition Lord Derby might have continued to resist their wishes. In office he was compelled to recognise that the views of the Peers must yield to the desires of the representatives of the people ; for it is the House of Commons which makes and unmakes ministries ; and it is the House of Commons which consequently determines the policy of Governments. It resulted from this concession that the House of Commons obtained a new and unexpected proof of its influence. It suddenly discovered that its power might be increased by the presence in oflSce of a Ministry which was opposed in opinion to the majority of its mem- bers ; for it could force the Lords, while a Conservative Ministry was in office, to make a concession which it would not yield while a Liberal Government was in power. Hence it followed that, except on those greater questions on which the fate of parties is de- pendent, there was more chance of obtaining reform from the Conservatives than from the Liberals; and hence it foUowed, too, that the three Administrations of Lord Derby, throughout which he could not reckon on the support of a majority in the Lower House, were characterised by concessions which could not have been expected from the language which Lord Derby and his followers used in opposition. The quaii- Another measure, passed in 1858, afforded one more members"* P^oof of the inability of the Conservatives to resist in office ofPariia- reforms which they had resisted in opposition. From the reign of Anne to the reign of Victoria, an English member of Parliament had been required to possess the qualification of a certain amount of landed property.^ The law, however, did not apply to Scottish members ' In the case of the county mem- member 300^., a year in land, ber fiOO/., in the case of the borough 9 Anne, c. 5. ment, THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEA.ES. 181 1858. and to the representatives of the universities, men who ^f^' were probably considered too poor ; or to the eldest sons of peers and of knights of the shire, men whose expectations were perhaps regarded as too great, to make it necessary or appUcable. In 1838 the law had been so far altered that the qualification had been ex- tended to personal as well as real property.^ The existence of the qualification naturally limited the choice of the electors to comparatively rich men, or^ in certain cases, to their eldest sons. It was, therefoi*e, obnoxious to the large school of thinkers who demanded the abolition of all remaining privileges. Its repeal had been long demanded, and formed, in fact, one of the five points of the original Charter. Its association in that document with such dreaded requirements as nianhood sufirage, equal electoral districts,, and vote by ballot, perhaps increased the dislike of -the Conserva- tives to yield upon it ; for the Conservative party has always regarded the maintenance of untenable outworks as essential to the defence of their chief position. Yet ■even the Conservatives could not ignore the facts that the law, in some cases, had acted badly in the past, and that it was being frequently evaded in the present ; for it was notorious that members who merely enjoyed .an allowance from their fathers, and had no property of their own, had no scruples in making a declaration that they possessed the qualification which, in many •cases, they certainly did not enjoy themselves. The defence of a law which many men were denounc- ing as unjust, and which no man could honestly declare to be essential, became annually more difiicult ; and, so lately as 1857, Lord Palmerston had only resisted a motion for its repeal by urging that all questions •connected with the representation of the people should be deferred till the Government had the opportunity of 1 1 & 2 Vict., c. 48. 182 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. '^m^' explaining their views on the whole subject of parlia- — . — mentary reform in the ensuing Session.^ There was 1858. every apparent reason why the Conservatives in 1858 should foUow the course which had commended itself to Lord Palmerston in 1857 ; for, so far as parliamen- tary reform was concerned, the Conservative Govern- ment was in the precise position that the Liberal Administration had occupied the year before. But the Conservatives, with only a minority at their disposal, did not venture on the course which Lord Palmerston had taken with a majority at his back. Instead of demanding the postponement of the measure tiU they could deal with the whole subject of reform, they accepted it with alacrity. They even expressed their conviction that, ' in point of reason, in point of principle, and in point of expediency, it [was] desirable to get rid of this sham.' ^ The The influences which were thus inducing a Con- onfss. servative Ministry, confronted by a Liberal majority, to abandon some of its old positions, and to reconsider some of its old opinions, had their effect on the financial arrangements of the year. The Chancellor of the Ex- chequer in Lord Derby's Administration was the man who had led the attack on Sir Eobert Peel's policy of free trade in corn, and who, in the succeeding Ministry, had endeavoured to conciliate the agriculturists by transferring one half the burden of local rates to the Consolidated Fund. He was the man who, more re- cently, had condemned the heavy expenditure for which ^ Ante, p. 93. He not only wanted the necessary ^ Hansard, vol. cl. p. 1435. It land, but he was also in receipt of a may be interesting to add that the pension. Sir Robert Inglis asked Home Secretary, in accepting the him whether he would accept the Bill on behalf of the Government, seat ifthe qualification were presented reminded the House that Mr. to him; but he decided to decline Southey had been excluded from it it on other grounds. See Dowden's by the existence of this qualification. Southey in English Men of Letters As a matter of fact Mr. Southey Series, p. 176. was under a double disqualification. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 183 Sir G. C. Lewis had provided in the preceding year. Judged by the action which he had taken in the forties, Mr. Disraeli was bound to do something for the relief of the agriculturists. Judged by the lan- guage which he had used in 1857, he was equally bound to do something towards reducing expenditure. Mr. Disraeli, however, never allowed himself to be hampered by ' rusty phrases ' ^ which he had coined in other times, and in 1858, instead of cursing the free- traders, he blessed them altogether.^ Instead of pro- posing reduced estimates, he made himself responsible for estimates which exceeded those of his predecessor. Assuming, as Mr. Disraeli assumed, that the income tax would automatically fall, in 1858-59, to 5d., and assuming that the Exchequer bonds falling due within the year were duly paid, and the "War Sinking Fund maintained, Mr. Disraeli considered that he could rely on a revenue of only 63,120,000^. to meet an expendi- ture of 67,110,000/.^ Mr. Disraeli, in a situation which ^ Mr. Disraeli applied this phrase to his old opinions in 1879. See Selected Speeches, vol. i. p. 338. ^ Mr. Disraeli, at the commence- ment of his speech, contrasted the trade of the country in 1853 — the year before the Crimean War — with that of 1857, and the figures showed an astounding prosperity. The ex- ports had risen in the four years from 99,000,000;. to 122,000,000/. ; the exports of textile goods from ^ The figures of the Budget were 52,000,000;. to 61,000,000;. ; those of metals from 19,600,000;. to 26,000,000;. ; the imports from 143,000,000;. to 187,000,000;.; the imports of raw cotton from 746,000,000 lbs. to 837,000,000 lbs. British shipping had grown from 9,000,000 to 11,600,000 tons, and foreign shipping from 6,000,000 to 7,400,000tons. Hansard, vol. cxlix. p. 1269. as follows : Reven Customs . Excise Stamps . Taxes Income Tax Post Office Crown Lands Miscellaneous ue. . £23,400,000 . 18,100,000 . 7,550,000 . 3,200,000 . 6,100,000 3,200,000 270,000 1,300,000 £63,120,000 Expenditi Debt .... Consol. Fund . Army Navy Miscellaneous . Collection of Revenue War Sinking Fund . Exchequer Bonds re. . £28,400,000 . 1,900,000 . 11,750,000 . 9,860,000 . 7,000,000 . 4,700,000 63,610,000 . 1,500,000 . 2,000,000 £67,110,000 CHAP. III. 1858. Hansard, vol. cxlix. pp. 1270-1276. 184 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. *^iii^' '^01^1'i have taxed the capacity of a greater financier, ■ — ' decided to suspend the Sinking Fund, and to postpone 1858. ^Yie payment of the Exchequer bonds till 1860, when the termination of a long annuity would set free a large amount of revenue. By this easy, though not very heroic or consistent course, he reduced his deficit from about 4,000,000Z. to about 500,000/. Something had still to be done to meet the remaining deficiency of half a million. Mr. Disraeli effected this by raising the duty on Irish spirits to a level with the duty on English spirits, and by imposing a stamp of one penny on bankers' cheques.^ By these means he contrived to convert a deficit of about 4,000,000/; , into a small surplus. No serious objection was made to these proposals. It was recognised that a Minister in Mr. Disraeli's circumstances could not be expected to produce an heroic Budget : the free-traders rejoiced that there was nothing in Mr. Disraeli's plan which was opposed to their principles, and the payers of income tax had to content themselves with the relief which they received, and to look forward, with the best grace in their power, to the continuance of a burden which neither Mr. Glad- stone's promises in 1853 nor Mr. Disraeli's criticism in 1857 had convinced them would cease in the near future. Pariia- In the meanwhile, Ministers were engaged in con- reform^ sidering how they could best redeerti the promise, which the Prime Minister had given, to deal with the question of parliamentary reform : that reform to which everyone was pledged, but which no one seemed to desire.^ The Eeform Bill of 1832 had had its origin in a committee of the Cabinet.^ The Ministry of 1858 decided to foUow the example of the Cabinet of 1830 ' Sansard, vol. cxlix. pp. 1278- Puncannon, who were not members 1291. of the Cabinet, bad served on " Times, 20tb of July, 1858. the committee. Hist, of Etigland, : ' Lord John Russell and Lord vol. iii. p. 206. THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 185 by referring the question of reform to a committee.^ "^ni^' This commitee had some material before it for its — ■ — - guidance ; for Eeform Bills had been introduced by ■^^^^• Lord John Eussell's Government in 1852, and by Lord Aberdeen's Government in 1854. Both these measures owed their origin to the same mind : both of them might be said to represent the mature conclusions of the veteran Whig stiatesman who had played so great a part in the preparation and conduct of the Eeform Act of 1832. The Bill of 1852,^ which had been introduced a few TheEe- days only before the defeat of the Whig Ministry, and omsa! which naturally feU with the fall of its author, had proposed to confer the county franchise on the occupiers of houses valued at 20^. a year, and on the occupiers of tenements in boroughs valued at 5^. a year ; and to introduce a new franchise — the first and faint fore- runner of many fancy franchises — by conferring a vote on every person who paid 40s. a year in direct taxation. The BiU did not contemplate the disfranchise- ment of any constituency, but it created two new boroughs (Burnley and Birkenhead), and it enlarged the boundaries of sixty-six old boroughs by throwing into them adjacent towns and parishes. The BiU of 1854 showed that Lord John Eussell, in The mi the interval, had adopted a bolder attitude. Influenced probably by Mr. Locke King's persistent advocacy, he proposed to extend the county franchise to resident occupiers rated at 101. or upwards, and the borough 1 The committee consisted of and 1860 were reprinted, in a very Lord Derby, Lord Stanley, Mr. convenient form, as a Parliamentary Disraeli, Lord Salisbury, Sir E. Paper in 1866. See Pari. Papers, Lytton, Sir J. Pakington, and Sir Session 1866, vol. Ivii. p. 639. In W. Jolliffe. I make this statement preparing this account 1 have had on the authority of a memorandum the great advantage of access to a of my father, detailing the various memorandum which Lord Thring committees to which the legislative has placed at my disposal, drawn programme of 1859 was referred in up by him for the use of the Cabinet the autumn of 1855. in 1866, comparing and explaining = The Bills of 1852, 1854, 1869, these four Bills. 1858. 186 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. ^^^^' franchise to householders whose houses had an annual value of 6/. A new provision was introduced, that the occupier should have resided for two years, instead of for only one year, either within or in the near neigh- bourhood of the borough for which he claimed the vote.' But the Bill went much farther than this. It conferred a vote on every adult male who (a) had a salary or pension of 100^. a year, [b) derived an income of 101. a year from the funds or some other kindred security, (c) paid 40s. a year in direct taxation, (d) was a graduate of any university, or (e) had 601. in a savings bank. The Bill also contained a large measure of redistribution. It disfranchised twenty-nine boroughs ; it partly dis- franchised thirty-three other boroughs ; and it conferred the seats which were thus set free on large counties and towns. ^ In doing so it adopted a new principle ; for, in several instances, it conferred a third member on a large county and a large town, and it endeavoured to provide in such cases for the representation of minorities by declaring that, in these constituencies, no voter should be entitled to vote for more than two candidates. The BiU of 1854 experienced no better fortune than the Bill of 1852. While the country was drifting into war, the Legislature was in no humour to consider a scheme of organic reform. But the Bill of 1854 at any rate had a large influence on the committee of the Cabinet of 1858, or on the Cabinet itself. The com- mittee, or the Cabinet, boldly incorporated in the proposal which they made the fantastic franchise in- ^ Technically the franchise was because such residence and rating conferred on every person who on afterwards formed two of the famous the last day of July in any year ' securities ' of the Act of 1867 shall have occupied during that year which were abandoned by Mr. Dis- and the whole of each of the two raeli while the Bill was passing preceding years the premises in through the House of Commons, respect whereof he shall have been ^ It also enfranchised five new rated on a yearly value exceeding boroughs, and gave representatives 6/. The provision, both as to resi- to the Inns of Court and the London dence and as to rating, is interesting University. 1859. The BUI THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 187 tended to confer votes on holders of funds, depositors ^^^' in savings banks, and graduates of universities ; and conferred votes on all pensioners receiving a pension of 20Z., on ministers of all denominations, on all lawyers, onssg.' on medical men, and on certificated schoolmasters. In these respects, then, the Bill of 1859 was a copy or an adaptation of the Bill of 1854. Though, however, the Bill of 1859 closely followed its predecessor of 1854 in devising new and fantastic methods for the enfranchisement of particular sections of the people, in other respects it differed from what had hitherto been either passed or proposed. For the Bills of 1852 and 1854 had preserved the distinction, which the Act of 1832 had maintained, between the county and borough franchise; while the BiU of 1859 swept it away, extending, on one side, the lOZ. occupa- tion franchise to counties, and conferring, on the other side, a vote for the borough instead of for the county on the 40s. freeholder resident in a borough. Thus the Eeform BiU of 1859 placed the county and borough voter on the same level of uninteresting uniformity. It confirmed, or rather emphasised, what Mr. Disraeli had himself called, ' the dreary monotony of the Settle- ment of 1832,' 1 In arriving at, or accepting, this conclusion, the Cabinet was partly influenced by some remarkable inquiries which it had been confidentially making. It had authorised Lord Derby to obtain privately from some twenty great territorial magnates statements of the actual results which in different localities would foUow the adoption of 30^., 20Z., and 10^. respectively as the limit of the county occupation franchise both as to the numbers which would be brought in, and the efiectupon 1 Mr. Locke King's Bill, for ex- sard, vol. cl. p. 1881, and Appendix), tending the 101. borough franchise and Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli to counties, had been read a second may have been to some extent influ- time in the summer of 1858 (Ban- enced by the lessons of this division. 1859. 188 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAE8. ™j^^- the influence of property from the class of voters who would be put in.^ It is obvious, therefore, that, in preparing a Eeform Bill, the Government, instead of searching for a principle, sought for some expedient which would preserve the influence of the Conservative landowner. One other franchise was, indeed, proposed at the same time. Lodgers, or, as Mr. Disraeli subsequently- called them, persons who occupied only a portion of a house, were to be entrusted with a vote provided that they paid at least 8s. a week. for their lodgings. But this franchise did not remedy the main defect of the measure, that it did nothing for the great class of toilers who, from their numbers and their importance, may be said, almost, to constitute the nation. The average working man, it was certain, did not pay 101. a year for his house, or 8s. a week for his lodgings ; and, in 1858, when the post office savings bank had not been invented, few working men had 60^. in a savings bank, and still fewer derived an income of lOZ. a year from the funds.^ It was evident that the authors of the Bill of 1859, in their search for a franchise which would not interfere with the influence of property, had not discovered that remarkable product of later years, the Conservative working man. In order, however, to still further pro- tect themselves against the possible intrusion of the work- ing classes into the domain of politics, the committee, or the Cabinet, decided that the elector, if he chose, should be at liberty to record his vote by a voting paper. Whatever other consequences might ensue from this innovation, it was plain that it would be con- venient to the wealthier men, who had votes in more than one constituency ; and that it was calculated rather to ^ I am using the exact words of ^ The Bill is printed in extenso in an exalted member of the Cabinet, Mansard, vol. cliii., Appendix, whose letter is in my possession. THE HISTORY OF TWENTy-FIVB YEARS. 189 increase than to diminish the pressure which a land- ^SP' lord might exercise on his tenant, or an employer on ■ — ■ — • his workman. The franchise clauses of the Bill, it ought to be added, were supplemented by a measure of redistribution. No borough, however small, was to be wholly disfranchised ; but fifteen boroughs, return- ing two members, were each to lose a member. Eight of the members so set free were to be allotted to the three great counties, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Middlesex, the remaining seven to seven unrepresented towns. The proposal did not commend itself to the entire Cabinet. Even in 1859, people were not satisfied that ' fancy franchises,' based on no principle and fulfilling no want, could be safely accepted as an adequate solu- tion of a difficult question ; and, even in 1859, many Conservatives doubted whether the introduction of vot- ing papers was either practicable or desirable. But the chief objections to the scheme were raised by the members of the Cabinet who held the ofiices of Secretary of State for the Home Department and President of the Board of Trade. Their views — for these men ultimately contri- buted to the fall of the Administration by retiring from the Cabinet — deserve some little notice. These two members were confidentially communi- The dif- cating their doubts and hesitations to one another in'^the*^ before the end of 1858. Indeed, the former of them Cabinet, sent the Prime Minister at the end of the year ' a new year's gift' ^ in the shape of an extended explanation of his views on parliamentary reform. Briefly stated, his objection to the scheme was that it was founded on no principle. There was nothing in the figure ten which, in his judgment, had any finality about it. It was a bad figure in the case of boroughs, but it was a worse figure in the case of counties ; for, while the ^ So Lord Derby described it. 190 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 1859. '^^^^' borough franchise had hitherto rested on the basis of citizenship, the county franchise had always rested on the basis of property. So far from assimilating the two franchises, it was highly desirable to keep them distinct ; and he for his part thought that, if the occupation franchise in counties were reduced to 201. houses, the point at which the house tax began, and the occupation franchise in boroughs to houses rated at 6Z., the point at which landlords ceased to be unable to compound for the tenants' rates, such a distinction would be maintained, and at the same time both franchises would be fixed on principles which would be clear to ordinary minds. In advocating this scheme the Home Secretary proposed the solution of the question to which many of his existing colleagues were to revert at a memorable crisis in the history of their party in 1867 ; and, though at that time the pro- posal, adopted after ten minutes' consideration, was abandoned in as many days, it is probable that it might have commanded a large measure of support in the spring of 185 P.^ The other member of the Cabinet arrived at the same conclusion, but he reached it by different reason- ing. He objected to the assimilation of the borough and county franchise. To use his own words : ' I hold that if you take a paint brush, and draw a line across the country, and say that all the people upon one side are to have the franchise, and all the people upon the other side are not to have it, as sure as the sun is in heaven you will have all the people upon the outside of the line, at some time or other, making a very ugly rush to break over it.' ^ Mr. Henley was no orator ; but he had a capacity for coining phrases ^ See Mr. Spencer Walpole's in the Qiuzrterlr/ Seview of October speech, Hansard, vol. clii. p. 1058. 1859 and January 1860. Mr. Walpole subsequently elaborated ' Soresarei, vol. clii. p. 1065. his views on reform in two articles THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. X91 which struck the imagination, and imprinted themselves chap. on the memory. The ugly rush, which he predicted in ■ — — - 1859, was long recollected both by his friends and by 1859. his opponents, and perhaps contributed to the defeat of the Ministry, from which he had retired, more even than the reasoning of the colleague who had left office with him. The second reading of the Bill, which was thus pre- The BUi pared and which was introduced by Mr. DisraeU on the f^l°-^ 28th of February, was fixed for the 21st of March. On that evening Lord John EusseU met the motion that the BiU be read a second time with an amendment con- demning the change in the position of the 40s. free- holders, and declaring that no readjustment of the franchise would be satisfactory which did not provide for its extension in boroughs.^ The debate on the amendment was protracted over seven nights, and, though much of it now affords only ' weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable ' reading, some few of the speeches were distinguished by other qualities. Two mem- bers of the Government, Sir E. Lytton and Sir H. Cairns, surprised by the splendour of a prepared oration, and the reasoned rhetoric of a practised lawyer. Mr. Bright moved by his declamation on one side, Mr. Disraeli by his genius on the other; but, so far as history is concerned, more importance attached to other speeches, for the debate on the second reading of the Eeform Bill of 1859 was the last great occasion on which Mr. Gladstone supported, both by his speech and his vote, the Conservative party .^ In other quarters, too, coming events of 1866 cast only an imperfect and misleading shadow on the stage in 1859 ; for, while Mr. Horsman and Lord Elcho supported the ^ Hawsarff, vol. cliii.pp. 389, 405. amendment to the Address, vide " Mr. Gladstone voted with the infra, p. 193, note, but on this Conservatives subsequently on the occasion he did not speak. 192 THE HISTORY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. CHAP. Government, Lord Grosvenor and Mr. Lowe recorded III. . - — , — - silent votes against them. 1859. Jn a, very full House, Lord John's amendment was EuBseii's carried by a substantial majority ; ^ and the Ministry, ^nt^" meeting on the following day, decided that they had cairied. qjjIj ^q choose between the resignation of their offices and the dissolution of Parliament. They resolved on ■ the latter course ; and accordingly on the 19th of April Parliament was prorogued by the Queen, her Majesty „ ,. announcinfif her intention ' forthwith to dissolve the Parlia- ° . ment is present Parliament, with a view to enable her people to express, in the mode prescribed by the Constitution, their opinion upon the state of public affairs.'^ The issue on which her Majesty required the opinion of the public was obviously a much larger one than the Eeform Bill of the Conservative Government, or the amendment of Lord John Eussell. As, indeed, the Queen herself went on to say, the appeal had become necessary in conse- quence of the difficulties of conducting public business in the House of Commons, which had practically declared its want of confidence in two Administrations in little more than twelve months. The true issue in 1859 was that which ought to have determined every election in the country since the Eeform Act, the issue whether the people of this country desired that its business should be conducted by Whig or Tory, Liberal or Conservative, by the party of progress or the party of retrogression. The issue, in 1859, was indeed partially obscured by the events which were taking place on the continent of Europe ; for, at the time at which the earlier elections were held, French troops were being hurried across the Alps, and Napoleon was preparing to place himself at their head in Northern Italy. The cause and conse- quences of the Franco-Austrian War of 1859 will be 1 330 votes to 291. Sansard, vol. cliii. p. 1257. " Ibid., p. 1898. THE HISTORY, OF TWENTY-FIVE YEAES. 193 related in another chapter: Here it is sufficient to chap. remark that, while the upper classes were suspected of ■ — ,-. — - a leaning towards Austria, the lower classes were ani- ■'■^^^• mated by a passionate desire for Italian independence! ; and the friends of Italy undoubtedly thought that the cause of peace and the cause of freedom would be safer in the hands of the Liberal leaders than in those of Lord Derby and Lord Malmesbury. In one sense their opinion was unjust. Few Ministers have laboured harder to preserve peace than Lord Malmesbury worked in the spring of 1859. In another sense it was true, The future of Italy owed as much to the election of 1859 as to the battle of Solferino ; Tor it replaced Lord Malmesbury, a Minister in favour of peace and Austria, with Lord John. Eussell, a Minister in favour of peace and Italy. ■Thus, though the Conservatives gained some scat- tered successes at the poUs,^ the verdict of the nation as a whole was given against them ; and when the new Parliament assembled, the Liberal party was en- couraged to meet the Address with a direct vote of want of confidence. They entrusted the motion to a young man. Lord Hartington, who .at that time was better known in society than in politics, and who, as the' heir to a great title and a great estate, and the representative of a great historic name, seemed likely to attract supporters; Lord Hartington's amendment .to the Address was carried, in a fuU House,^ by a small ^ It-was computed that the new Italian Blue Book on the table of Parliament comprised 353 Liberals the House of Commons. See and 302 Conservatives. The net Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, -p. 491, Conservative gain at the polls was Mr. Gladstone, it is worth adding, placed, at ,24 seats. Times, 21st of voted yith the Government, but May, 1859. he did not speak in the debate. The f 323 votes to 310. Hansard/ division in a House, including the vol, cliy. p. 417. Lord Malmesbury Speaker and the tellers, of 638 .thpugl^t that the Ministry woul