Chapter XX: Empress of India

Mr. Disraeli recognises Intellect--Lord Hartington Liberal
Leader--The Queen’s Speech--Lord Hartington’s “Grotesque
Reminiscences”--Mr. Cross’s Labour Bills--The Artisans’
Dwellings Act--Mr. Plimsoll and the “Ship-knackers”--Lord
Hartington’s First “Hit”--The Plimsoll Agitation--Surrender of
the Cabinet--“Strangers” in the House--The Budget--Rise of Mr.
Biggar--First Appearance of Mr. Parnell--The Fugitive Slave
Circular--The Sinking of the Yacht _Mistletoe_--The Loss of the
_Vanguard_--Purchase of the Suez Canal Shares--The Prince of
Wales’s Visit to India--Resignation of Lord Northbrook--Appointment
of Lord Lytton as Viceroy of India--Outbreak of the Eastern
Question--The Andrassy Note--The Berlin Memorandum--Murder of
French and German Consuls at Salonica--Lord Derby Rejects the
Berlin Memorandum--Servia Declares War on Turkey--The Bulgarian
Revolt Quenched in Blood--The Sultan Dethroned--Opening of
Parliament--“Sea-sick of the Silver Streak”--Debates on the
Eastern Question--Development of Obstruction by Mr. Biggar and Mr.
Parnell--The Royal Titles Bill--Lord Shaftesbury and the Queen--The
Queen at Whitechapel--A Doleful Budget--Mr. Disraeli becomes Earl
of Beaconsfield--The Prince Consort’s Memorial at Edinburgh--Mr.
Gladstone and the Eastern Question--The Servian War--The
Constantinople Conference--The Tories Manufacture Failure for Lord
Salisbury--Death of Lady Augusta Stanley--Proclamation of the Queen
as Empress at Delhi.

The year 1875 opened less gloomily for the Ministry than for the Opposition. Mr. Disraeli had sanctioned the despatch of a Polar Expedition, and in a curious letter, since published by Mr. Froude, he had tendered Mr. Carlyle the Grand Cross of the Bath on the ground that “a Government should recognise Intellect.”[80] He had also offered Mr. Tennyson--“if not a great poet, a real one,” to use his own phrase--a baronetcy. Both offers had been refused, but the scientific and literary classes--potent agencies for influencing public opinion--sang loud the praises of a Ministry that was so obviously in sympathy with them. As for the Opposition, Mr. Gladstone’s definite refusal to lead them any longer, compelled them to elect a successor, whereupon an infinite amount of dissension, heartburning, and jealousy was stirred up in their ranks. Mr. Goschen, Sir William Harcourt, and Mr. W. E. Forster were the candidates who had most partisans, and the last was undoubtedly the one on whom the public choice would have fallen, if the public had been permitted to arbitrate between the rivals. The Nonconformists, however, had not yet forgiven Mr. Forster, and Mr. Bright put him out of the field by using his powerful influence in favour of Lord Hartington, who was finally selected. According to one of the ablest of Liberal political critics, Lord Hartington “succeeded in making the whole party content, if not enthusiastic, with their choice.”[81] Lord Hartington had, in the course of the Session, virtually nothing to do, and, like the Peers in Mr. Gilbert’s opera, he “did it very well.” The Queen’s Speech outlined a temperately progressive policy, and when the Opposition leader taunted Ministers with failing to carry out the scheme of reaction to which they stood pledged on the hustings and in the Conservative Press, Mr. Disraeli, with demure gaiety, protested against his “grotesque reminiscences.” Lord Hartington, he complained, sought out “the most violent speeches made by the most uninfluential persons in the most obscure places, and the most absurd articles appearing in the dullest and most uninfluential newspapers,” and took these as the opinions of “the great Conservative Party.”[82] The opinions of the Conservative Ministry, he added, were now expressed from the front Ministerial Bench, and for these alone did he hold himself responsible.

Mr. Cross was the popular Minister of the Session. His Artisans’ Dwellings Bill embodied a resolution which Mr. U. Kay-Shuttleworth and Sir Sidney Waterlow had induced Mr. Gladstone’s Government to accept, and though in practice it proved disastrous to local ratepayers, it was taken as a kindly recognition of claims which Liberal Cabinets had too often ignored.[83] Mr. Cross was much more successful with his Labour Bills, drafts of which, it was said, had been prepared by Mr. Lowe. The Home Secretary had framed his Bills to conciliate Tory members who had eloquently denounced Trades Unions during the General Election. But in Committee he accepted amendments which removed from the law every trace of the evil spirit that punished breach of contract by a workman, not as a civil offence, but as a crime. Though he fought hard against the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, he finally surrendered to Mr. Lowe, and not only accepted his definition of “molestation” or “picketing,” but further agreed to his proposal to make that offence punishable when committed by anybody--be he master or servant. The growth of a Conservative spirit among the Trades Unions dates from the passing of Mr. Cross’s Employers and Workmen Bill, and his Conspiracy Bill. Mr. Gathorne-Hardy’s Regimental Exchanges Bill was a reactionary concession to “the Colonels,” for it gave rich officers facilities for bribing poor ones to relieve them from arduous foreign service. Lord Cairns, however, did much more harm to the Government by withdrawing his Judicature Bill under the menaces of a secret Junta of Peers, headed by the Duke of Buccleuch, who had resolved to restore to the House of Lords its Appellate Jurisdiction. Whilst independent Peers protested against this course as a slight to the Upper House, the country considered that it indicated a deplorable want of courage. For when Lord Cairns’ new Bill, postponing till the 1st of November, 1886, the provisions of Lord Selborne’s Act (1873),[84] and establishing an Intermediate Court of Appeal as a kind of judicial makeshift, came before the House of Commons, Sir John Holker, with indiscreet frankness, explained why the Government had dropped their own measure. The Peers, he said, meant to retain their jurisdiction in spite of the House of Commons, and it was, therefore, futile to resist them. This admission that the Cabinet, which ought to be responsible only to the Queen and to Parliament, was really controlled by a small caucus of Peers, whose very names were kept secret, was one which Government could now-a-days survive. The Bill, however, passed before the Session closed.

Ministers also lost much of their popularity through Mr. Disraeli’s tenderness towards owners of unseaworthy ships. Mr. Plimsoll had stirred

(_From a Photograph by Russell and Sons._)]

up public opinion against the “ship-knackers,” as he called them, who, having over-insured vessels that were rotten, sent them away to founder at sea with their crews, and then put the insurance money in their pockets. The Board of Trade had rather frowned on his efforts to get it to detain unseaworthy ships for survey, but in deference to popular pressure the Government had promised to bring in a Merchant Shipping Bill to check the evil which Mr. Plimsoll had discovered and denounced. The Bill was read a second time in the Commons without opposition, and it was one in which the Queen was said to be as much interested as Mr. Plimsoll himself. But Mr. Disraeli had brought forward a measure permitting farmers to receive compensation for unexhausted improvements, and enabling landlords to deny them this compensation by contracting themselves out of the Bill. He had contrived to get Government business into confusion by trying to push on Ministerial measures abreast instead of in single file, and in a fatal moment he shelved the Merchant Shipping Bill, in order to make way for the perfectly worthless Agricultural Holdings Bill. He announced the fact on the 22nd of July, when Mr. Goschen entered a mild protest.

Mr. Plimsoll, however, rose quivering with rage and passion, and moved the adjournment of the House. He not only protested against the Government postponing a Bill that interfered with “the unhallowed gains” of the “shipknackers,” but said that some of them sat in the House, and mentioned by name one of “the villains” he was determined to “unmask.” In vain the Speaker called him to order. Louder and louder grew the turmoil, and in the midst of it Mr. Disraeli grew visibly pale when Mr. Plimsoll rushed up the floor of the House with his clenched fist extended in front of him. However, he did not strike the Premier or Sir Charles Adderley--who was officially in charge of the Bill--as had been dreaded. He merely stood on one leg, placed a written protest on the table, and then, having shaken his fist in the Speaker’s face, marched out of the Chamber amidst a scene of terrible disorder. Mr. Disraeli lost his temper and, with it, touch of the House for a moment. In angry accents he moved that Mr. Plimsoll be reprimanded there and then, whereupon the Speaker interfered, and said that before a motion of that sort could be put Mr. Plimsoll, who was now standing below the bar, must be heard in his place. Mr. Plimsoll, however, preferred immediate withdrawal, and the House was on the eve of entering into conflict with a defiant Member, supported by an irresistible force of democratic passion in the country, a conflict from which it must have emerged with impaired authority, when suddenly Lord Hartington came to the rescue. His frigid accents, in strong contrast with Mr. Disraeli’s tremulous tones of wrath, immediately cooled the temper of the House. Mr. Plimsoll was, said Lord Hartington, merely suffering from “overstrain acting on a very sensitive temperament, and before taking any strong measures against a man so universally respected, it would be more consonant with the dignity of the House to give him reasonable time to put himself right.” Mr. Disraeli instantly saw that Lord Hartington’s phlegmatic sense had suggested the course that would extricate him from the dangerous position into which he was leading the House, and he consented to adjourn the matter for a week. Mr. Plimsoll made an honourable apology to the Speaker, and the matter ended happily, but the incident, to the gratification of the country, revealed in Lord Hartington a capacity for cool and adroit leadership, the existence of which had hitherto been unsuspected. The day after the scene in the House of Commons a storm of agitation broke over the country on behalf of Mr. Plimsoll. From every constituency remonstrances couched in terms of strong indignation poured in upon the House of Commons. Tory Members warned the Whips that they did not dare to run athwart the wave of passion that swept over the land. The Cabinet accordingly held a meeting in a panic, and resolved to bring in a temporary Bill empowering the Board of Trade to detain rotten ships and to prohibit grain cargoes from being carried in bulk. The measure was passed, even the Peers shrinking from the responsibility of rejecting it.

Another blunder damaged Mr. Disraeli’s leadership. In April Mr. Charles Lewis moved that the printer of the _Times_ be summoned to the Bar and dealt with for printing a letter reflecting on a Member of the House of Commons, in a report of evidence given before the Foreign Loans Committee. It was an attempt to carry out the old Standing Order, which made it an offence for newspapers to report Parliamentary proceedings. Mr. Disraeli first spoke against the motion, and then voted for it. It was carried. But next day he moved that the Order be discharged, and when Mr. Sullivan asked him if he intended to put the relations of the Press and Parliament on a less anomalous footing, he answered “No.” Thereupon Mr. Sullivan warned him he would insist on carrying out the ridiculous old Standing Order, and clearing the House of reporters every night till Mr. Disraeli yielded. Lord Hartington induced Mr. Sullivan to refrain, but Mr. Biggar next stepped in, and with elfish humour, one night when the Prince of Wales was listening to a debate, rose and said he “espied strangers in the House,” which was duly cleared of every one--including the Prince--save Members. The two leaders then carried a motion suspending the ridiculous Order for that evening. Mr. Disraeli, however, still refused to alter the rule or accept a proposal from Lord Hartington for altering it. Mr. Sullivan accordingly retorted by again “espying strangers,” clearing the House, and compelling the Government to adjourn an important debate. Mr. Disraeli now saw he had no choice but to surrender. He therefore carried a new Standing Order, enabling the Speaker to exclude strangers when he saw fit, but submitting the attempt of a private Member to clear the House, to the check of an immediate and undebateable vote.

Sir Stafford Northcote’s Budget was ominous of hard times coming. Prices were beginning to fall, and unsound Foreign Loans, in which rich people had invested, were beginning to collapse. Sir Stafford Northcote, therefore, though he received half a million more revenue than he expected, wisely made no sanguine estimate for the ensuing year. His anticipated expenditure he put at £75,268,000, an increase of £939,000, and his revenue at £75,685,000, showing a probable surplus of £417,000, which was ultimately converted by supplementary estimates into an estimated deficit of £300,000--a bad contrast to the miraculous surplus of £6,000,000, which in the previous year he inherited from Mr. Gladstone. There was no special feature in the Budget, save the scheme fixing the charge for the paying up the interest and the principal of the National Debt in future at £28,000,000 a year, and making it obligatory to meet this sum before any surplus could be declared. It was, in fact, a plan for establishing a rigid Sinking Fund to discharge the National Debt, and though it was popular at the time, it failed, as all such plans fail, because whenever a difficulty arises Ministers of Finance always confiscate a Sinking Fund in preference to imposing new taxes.

(_From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co._)]

Ireland, represented by the new National Party, under Mr. Butt, gained little during 1875, but she gained something. Under a Liberal Government half the Home Rule Party could have been bribed by places into silence. But an ostentatiously hostile Tory Ministry could not offer them places, and yet they had to be quieted somehow, for the Irish people had by this time lost faith in their insincere Parliamentary action. Fenian agents were telling the Irish peasantry that they could expect no concessions unless they extorted them by revolution. The Government, accordingly, relaxed the existing Coercion Acts, and the debate on one of these--the Westmeath Act--was, on the 22nd of April, 1875, rendered historic by the intervention of Mr. Biggar, who talked against time for five hours, by the simple device of reading long extracts from Blue Books.[85] Shortly after this feat, Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell, a young Wicklow squire, who had been educated at Cambridge, and was notable for his shyness, his aristocratic reserve, and his faltering and confused speech, took his seat as Member for Meath, in succession to John Martin, who had died. Nothing was known of him save that he had the reputation of being a Protestant landlord who was on good terms with his tenants, that from his mother--a daughter of the celebrated Commodore Stewart of the United States Navy--he had inherited Republican ideas, that he was a lover of field sports, and that he was a cadet of the family of which his great-grandfather, Sir John Parnell, Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer in 1782, was a distinguished member, and the head of which was the present Lord Congleton. That his beautiful estate of Avondale was heavily mortgaged was _not_ regarded as noteworthy. Mr. Joseph Gillies Biggar, whose quaint b_ourgeois_ humour had already made him, if not the favourite, at least one of the privileged “diversions” of the House, and who was destined to be Mr. Parnell’s coadjutor in organising the largest and most powerful Irish National Party of the Victorian period, was a prosperous provision-dealer, of Scottish extraction, trading in Belfast. His experience of affairs had been gained as Chairman of the local Water Board.

Parliament was prorogued peacefully on the 13th of August, and, on the whole, Ministers emerged from the Session with credit. Mr. Disraeli’s bright wit, his cheerful temper, and his airy jocularity in meeting serious attacks, recalled pleasant memories of Lord Palmerston, and tempted the House to forget his occasional blunders as its Leader. The Recess, however, brought serious peril to his Cabinet--peril which, however, it had done little to deserve. In the middle of September it was discovered that the Foreign Office had induced the Admiralty to issue a Fugitive Slave Circular to naval officers. They were told they must not receive fugitive slaves in territorial waters unless their lives were in danger. If the fugitive slave came on board a British ship in territorial waters, he was not to remain if it were proved he were a slave. If received on the high seas, he must be surrendered when the ship came within the territorial waters of the country from which he had escaped. The Circular, in fact, defined the legal obligations under which British ships of war must logically lie if they chose to enter the territorial waters of slave States, with which England was not at war. It was a Circular embodying regulations on which every Liberal Minister had habitually acted, but the Liberal Party immediately proceeded to make political capital out of it. An agitation as fierce as that which was caused by the abandonment of the Merchant Shipping Bill sprang up, and Lord Derby, at whose instance the Admiralty issued the Circular, was accused of attempting to commit England to a furtive partnership with slave-owners. The most that could be said in fairness against the document was that it was so badly drafted as to imply that the deck of a Queen’s ship was subject to foreign jurisdiction. Moreover, the order to surrender a fugitive slave who had taken refuge on a Queen’s ship on the high seas, was so completely indefensible that Lord Derby himself struck it out of the second edition of his Circular. He might as well have ordered a British Consul in Rio to arrest and surrender a Brazilian slave who, having gained freedom by escaping to English soil, had afterwards returned to that port. Till Parliament met in 1876, the country rang with the inflated protests of Liberal partisans against the amended Circular, which was published after the original one had been suspended in October, and cancelled in November.

But the issue and publication of the Slave Circular was not the only blunder at the Admiralty that rendered the Government unpopular during the Recess. They were guilty of one which gave the Queen the utmost annoyance. When she was crossing the Solent from Osborne to Gosport on the 18th of August her yacht ran down another yacht called the _Mistletoe_. The owner (Mr. Heywood) and his sisters-in-law, Miss Annie Peel and Miss Eleanor Peel, were on board, and, though the last-named was rescued, Miss Annie Peel and the sailing-master were drowned. The Queen happened to be on deck, and her emotion during the scene was painful to witness. The Prince of Leiningen, as commander of the Royal yacht, was blamed by the people for the catastrophe, and unfortunately the Admiralty not only refused to try him by court-martial, but, after a secret inquiry, condemned the navigating officer. This roused public wrath, and it was ungenerously alleged that the Queen had forced a servile Minister to protect her nephew from just punishment. The fact is, as a subsequent case showed, the Admiralty merely followed the stereotyped rule, which, in those days, was to punish subordinate officers for the blunders of their superiors. It used to be asked, What was a navigating officer on board a Queen’s ship for, unless to take his captain’s punishment? Unfortunately for the Prince of Leiningen, there was a tribunal from which he could not escape--the coroner’s inquest on the bodies of those for whose death he was morally responsible. The evidence given before the coroner still further exasperated the ill-feeling which had been roused. Yachtsmen--proverbially a loyal body of men--were irritated at the tone of a letter addressed to the president of the Cowes Yacht Club (the Marquis of Exeter), in which General Ponsonby expressed the Queen’s wish that in future members of the Club would not approach too closely to the Royal yacht when the Queen was on board. The insinuation contained in this document and assumption that no blame rested on the officers of the _Alberta_, provoked yachtsmen in every club in Great Britain to retort that, in their painful experience, the Queen’s yachts were navigated in the Solent with a disregard of the “rules of the road” which rendered them a constituted nuisance.

In this particular instance the Royal yacht had been driven at the rate of seventeen miles an hour, and the Prince of Leiningen and his subordinates had paid no attention to the Board of Trade rule which makes it the duty of a steamer to get well out of the way of a sailing-vessel. The quartermasters of the yacht, too, gave their evidence in a manner which not only cast suspicion on their testimony, but suggested that they stood in terror of their officers. A letter which the Queen wrote to her nephew expressing her satisfaction with their conduct, was moreover taken to be an attempt to unduly influence the Coroner’s Court. The first jury did not agree on a verdict, and the outcry about the Queen’s letter was so loud that the case had to be tried again. The Queen had for a moment forgotten that the vast influence which she had acquired during her reign rendered it imperative for her to be silent on all matters of controversy--especially if they were under judicial investigation. She forgot that the mere expression of her individual opinion gave an advantage to one side in a dispute, the extent of which she herself had clearly never dreamt of--an advantage so great, that it bore unfairly against the side that had not got it. The second jury, however, brought in a verdict of “Accidental Death,” and condemned the officers of the Royal yacht (1), for steaming at too high a speed, and (2), for keeping a bad look-out. The verdict was quite illogical. If the look-out on the _Alberta_ was bad and her speed too high, and if, as was proved, her officer had violated the rule of the road, the verdict ought to have been one of Manslaughter. But no further steps were taken to do justice. Mr. Anderson brought the case before the House of Commons, and though he was defeated in his effort to make the Government move in the affair, he created a great stir in the country, by declaring that public funds had been used as hush-money to prevent further inquiry.[86] So far as the verdict of the jury went, demanding that the Royal yachts should steam at less speed in the Solent, it was absurd. State business often forces the Queen and her messengers and Ministers to travel fast. What the jury should have recommended was a new rule of the road, to the effect that everything must make way on the water for a yacht flying the Sovereign’s personal flag.

The other blunder of the Admiralty arose out of an inquiry into the loss of two ironclads off the Wicklow coast. On the night of the 1st of September the _Iron Duke_ rammed and sank the _Vanguard_. There was a fog at the time, and the captain of the _Vanguard_ left the deck at the moment of greatest peril, and was stupid enough to reduce speed for no discernible reason without warning the _Iron Duke_, which was coming behind him. The captain of the _Iron Duke_ was stupid enough to increase her speed in the fog, and she was not only badly steered, but her fog-signal was not blown. Had they been employed in the merchant service these two officers would have been subjected to the severest punishment. As it was, the captain of the _Vanguard_ was dismissed the service. The captain of the _Iron Duke_, who had been condemned by the court-martial for ramming the _Vanguard_, was acquitted, on a review of his sentence by the Admiralty. The Admiralty then, by way of compensation, cashiered his subordinate, Lieutenant Evans, without a trial, and without giving him leave to make a defence. As for the Admiral, who, from lack of skill or from negligence permitted the ships of his squadron to sail close to each other in a fog, he was freed from blame.

Fortunately for Mr. Disraeli, an opportunity for a great stroke of policy occurred, which diverted public attention from these blunders, and re-established the waning popularity of his Ministry. On the 26th of November it was announced that the Government had bought for £4,000,000 the Khedive’s shares in the Suez Canal, and what a French writer described as “a conquest by mortgage” was hailed by the English people, with a shout of gratification. The impecunious ruler of Egypt had been literally hawking

his Canal shares among the Powers. It was possible that at any moment Germany or France might buy them up, and then impede the passage of English troops to India. Not a day was to be lost, and Mr. Disraeli, therefore, on his own responsibility, and without consulting his Cabinet, purchased the Shares. There was joy in the City over this operation. The bankruptcy of Turkey, declared at the end of October, had converted Turkish Bonds into waste paper, and it was some compensation to speculators that Mr. Disraeli’s purchase of the Canal Shares sent up the price of Egyptian Stock by leaps and bounds. Lord Hartington, it is true, in a speech at Sheffield (15th of December), querulously carped at the transaction. But as his contention was that England was in a better position to secure the neutrality of the Canal without than with a solid proprietary interest in it, nobody paid the least attention to his unpatriotic cavillings. They merely convinced the country that, despite Mr. Disraeli’s bungling Parliamentary leadership, his inaccuracy of statement, his loose hold of principle, and the administrative blunders of his subordinates, he was the only living statesman of first rank, in whose hands the higher interests of the Empire were safe.

It was announced in March that the Prince of Wales was to visit India in November, with Sir Bartle Frere as his guide. In July it was decided that his tour should be a State Progress, the expenses of which should be paid for out of the revenues of England and India. The marine escort was to be provided by the Admiralty at a cost of £52,000; the Indian Treasury was to contribute £30,000; and when Mr. Disraeli asked the House of Commons for £52,000, Lord Hartington had no complaint to make except that he thought the vote ought to be larger. Messrs. Macdonald and Burt, when they objected that the working-classes would not approve of the grant, were literally “howled down” by the House. Yet all Mr. Burt said was that as he himself lived on a salary derived from his constituents, he could not decently vote away their money to pay the cost of what they believed was a tour of pleasure for a rich Prince. His argument was fair enough from his point of view. It was faulty because he failed to see that a vote for a State pageant which meant to individualise the Monarchy to the Indian mind, was not a grant to the Prince as a private individual. Mr. Bright’s support of the grant, which was voted, was useful to the Government. But as his argument was that the visit of the Prince might be serviceable in checking the harsh and cruel treatment to which the natives of India are subjected by their English rulers, it was condemned as unjust to the devoted servants of the Queen, who wear out their lives in honourable exile, maintaining peace in an Empire that, without them, would be converted into a pandemonium of slaughter.

The opening days of 1876 were marked by the announcement of Lord Northbrook’s resignation as Viceroy of India. The Indian Viceroy had for some time thwarted the policy of the Secretary of State, and the final rupture was made when they differed in opinion as to the kind of Envoy the Government should have at Cabul. It was a quaint controversy. Lord Salisbury said the face of the British Envoy should be white. Lord Northbrook contended that it should be black, whereupon Lord Salisbury wrote Lord Northbrook a despatch, couched in terms that left him no alternative save resignation. According to Lord Salisbury, unless a white Envoy kept watch over the Ameer, Shere Ali, our information from Cabul would be defective. According to Lord Northbrook, if we sent an European Envoy to Cabul, he would be promptly assassinated, in which case we should get no information at all, and India would be dragged into a ruinous war of vengeance. Lord Northbrook had nothing on his side but facts. No Afghan Ameer had ever been able to guarantee a Christian Envoy at Cabul against assassination. When Lord Salisbury did send an European Envoy to Cabul he was not only murdered, but, pending his inevitable murder, the only information worth having that came from Cabul, came from native sources. It was, moreover, a slight on the Indian Government to say that they had not been able to train a Mahommedan official of rank up to the duties of effective diplomatic espionage at Cabul. However, the dispute ended in Lord Northbrook coming back to England, and in Lord Lytton going out to India as his successor. There was no doubt a time when the appointment of a diplomatist who was a Peer and a passionate poet, to the Viceregal Throne might have been useful. Unhappily, in 1876, a different type of ruler was needed in India. The war cloud in Eastern Europe was about to break, and it was well known that in any diplomatic contest between Russia and England, it would be the aim of Russia to weaken England by making trouble for her on her Indian frontier. For the stress of the times, a man like Lord Mayo was necessary, and Lord Lytton was everything that Lord Mayo was not.

All through 1875 there had been in Bosnia and Herzegovina disturbances precisely similar to those in the Principalities which preceded the Crimean War. After Lord Derby had been appealed to by Musurus Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador in London, he suggested to Count Andrassy that Austria should prevent her subjects on her frontier from supporting the insurgents in the mutinous Turkish provinces, and a similar suggestion was made to the Servian Government. His advice to the Turks was to stamp out rebellion as quickly as possible, so as to prevent it from spreading and provoking European intervention. The Porte, instead of acting on this advice, desired that the Consuls of the Great Powers should mediate between the Sultan and the rebels, and Lord Derby, instead of adhering to his original counsels, weakly fell in with this proposal, and consented, though with great hesitancy, to let the British Consul join the delegation. The rebels were delighted with the proposals of the Consuls for their better government, but refused to lay down their arms unless the Powers guaranteed that the Turks would carry them out. The Consuls were pleased that the demands of the insurgents were moderate and reasonable, but could give no guarantees for the good faith of Turkey. As they were returning from their mission fighting began again.

From their public utterances during the recess of 1875 it was inferred that while Lord Derby was averse from further intervention on the part of England in the business, because in the East, he said, “we want nothing, and fear nothing,” Mr. Disraeli was of opinion that England had great interests in Eastern Europe, which the Government, he said at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, “are resolved to guard and maintain.” There are no novelties in English politics. The situation was the same as that which led to the Crimean War, and it also had to be dealt with by a Cabinet which, like Lord Aberdeen’s, was divided into interventionists and non-interventionists. But an acute observer might have detected what Mr. Disraeli failed to see, that English opinion had changed since 1853. In 1853 the electors were in favour of intervention, whereas, since the defeat of Palmerston by the Court and Mr. Cobden in 1864, they had always been against it. As the insurrection spread, the Porte promised reforms. Three Powers--Austria, Germany and Russia, afterwards joined by France and Italy--sent a Note to Turkey known as “the Andrassy Note” (30th of December, 1875), condemning the misgovernment of the insurgent provinces, bewailing the broken promises of the Porte, and demanding certain reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina to prevent a general rising. Lord Derby, after about a month’s hesitation, instructed the British Ambassador to give the Note a general support. Turkey accepted most of its proposals, and issued another _Iradé_ to carry them out. The _Iradé_ was never made operative, and though Lord Derby was not offended by the contumacy of Turkey, the other Powers resented it. Count Schouvaloff persuaded him to permit Lord Odo Russell to meet the representatives of the five Powers at Berlin in May to consider the situation. At this meeting the Berlin Memorandum was produced and agreed to by the Continental Powers.

It assumed, that as the Porte had promised to carry out the reforms in the Andrassy Note, the Powers had now the right to force it to keep its pledges. It formulated the guarantees which Europe asked for in order to give effect to the Andrassy Note, and threatened Turkey with “more effective measures” of coercion if she failed to give them within two months after an armistice between her and her rebellious provinces had been concluded. The reason why the Note was minatory lay on the surface. The Consuls of France and Germany had been murdered by the Turks at Salonica, and before any redress could be obtained Prince Bismarck had to send the Porte an ultimatum that meant war. Lord Derby declined to assent to the Memorandum, on the ground that England had not been consulted in the preparing of it, and did not believe that it would do any good if presented. The Foreign Ministers of the Powers in vain implored him to reconsider his decision, and then the Memorandum was tossed into the waste-paper basket of diplomacy. Turkey, seeing that Lord Derby had broken up the European Concert at Berlin, behaved exactly as she did when Clarendon broke up the same instrument of coercion at Vienna. Her contumacy was intensified, and what was still more serious, her European vassals, seeing that diplomacy had failed to rescue them from misrule, took up arms. Within a month after the diplomatic triumph of England, the Turks found it had secured to them the following advantages:--(1), The Continental Powers withdrew from the field, and adopted an attitude of vigilant inactivity. (2), Servia and Montenegro declared war on Turkey. (3), The soil of Bulgaria was soaked with the blood of her Christian population, whose revolt had been quelled by massacres and ghastly atrocities, that rendered expulsion from Europe the manifest destiny of the Ottoman race. (4), The Sultan Abdul Aziz was dethroned by a mob of fanatical Moslems, and his European Empire lay wrecked in anarchy. It had been made a matter of complaint that the Foreign Policy of England in 1853 was slow in producing any effect. When we consider what happened in the month that followed the failure of the Berlin Memorandum, and the collapse of the European Concert, that complaint cannot be justly advanced against Mr. Disraeli’s Foreign Policy in 1876.

Parliament was opened on the 8th of February by the Queen in person, with great pomp and ceremony; and the Royal Speech promised several useful measures dealing with the Court of Appeal, Merchant Shipping, and Prisons. But the one that excited most public interest was the Bill to confer on the Sovereign a new title derived from India, in gracious acknowledgment of the enthusiastic reception given to the Prince of Wales by the natives of that Empire. As for the Slave Circular, the questions raised by it were to be referred to a Royal Commission. The Foreign Policy of the Government was expressed by Mr. Disraeli, in terms that appealed sympathetically to national feeling. It was based on the idea that England was responsible for the good use of her influence in the councils of Europe, and it united the Tory Party, and caused the country to condone all Ministerial blunders. The debate on the Eastern Question showed that Mr. Gladstone and other eminent Liberals approved of Lord Derby’s adherence to the Andrassy Note. But it clearly indicated that the Opposition would attack the Government if it adopted the old Crimean policy of supporting Turkey whenever she rejected the demands of Europe. The purchase of the Suez Canal Shares provoked more controversy. It turned out that they had been mortgaged by the Khedive, and could not yield dividends for nineteen years, a fact unknown to Mr. Disraeli when he bought them. Sir Stafford Northcote, therefore, proposed to borrow £4,000,000, and exact from the Khedive 5 per cent. a year on that sum to cover the loss of the mortgaged dividends. Mr. Gladstone attacked the financial details of the transaction,[87] and though his criticism was logical it failed to influence the country. Had the purchase of the Shares been solely a commercial speculation, the unbusiness-like manner in which it had been effected would have been of some importance. But it was also a stroke of high policy, and it appealed to the imperial instincts of the nation which, as Mr. Disraeli said, was getting “sea-sick of the silver streak.”[88] Most of Mr. Gladstone’s prophecies have been falsified by events. Oddly enough the only valid objections to the purchase of the Canal Shares were not pressed by him. They were (1), That a Canal which could be easily blocked and wrecked by an enemy’s ship, was not a safe route to India; and (2), That the fault of Mr. Disraeli’s policy was in his failure to carry it out to its logical conclusion--the establishment of a British Protectorate over Egypt, which would have rendered the final fate of Turkey, a matter of indifference to Englishmen. Parliament ratified the policy of the Government with enthusiasm. The appointment of the Royal Commission to examine all the difficulties raised by the Slave Circular saved Ministers from defeat at the end of the Debate on the issue of that stupid State Paper. The Government was also fortunate in its domestic legislation. The Merchant Shipping Bill, when it passed, was found to be a compromise which remedied most of the wrongs for which Mr. Plimsoll sought redress. Lord Sandon’s Education Act was a concession to the advocates of compulsory education, for it prohibited the employment of children under ten, and it prohibited the employment of children between ten and fourteen, who had not attended school 250 times a year and passed an examination in the Fourth Standard. In fact, the Bill legalised, not direct, but indirect compulsion. Bills restricting the practice of vivisection, and restoring to the House of Lords its Appellate Jurisdiction, but adding to it Judges of Appeal, who would be Peers during their tenure of office, and who, with the ex-Chancellor, would discharge the judicial functions of the Upper House, were also passed. For the meagre achievements of the Session three reasons may be given: (1), Much time was lost over the Education Act, because not only was it necessary for the Opposition to tone down its reactionary clauses, but concessions to the opponents of School Boards were suddenly sprung upon the House by Lord Sandon, which had to be fiercely resisted. (2), The policy of obstruction which had been adopted with so much success to delay Mr. Forster’s Ballot Bill in 1883, was now developed in an ingenious manner by Messrs. Biggar and Parnell. They “blocked” Bills indiscriminately, so as to bring them under the rule which forbade opposed measures to be taken after half-past twelve at night. They moved adjournments in various forms at half-past twelve, on the ground that the hour was too far advanced for discussion. They were always on the watch to “count out” the House, and they never missed a chance of “talking out” a Bill,[89] quite regardless of its merits. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar thus taught themselves to be formidable debaters at the expense of the House, for, as Mr. Parnell once told a friend, the best way to learn the rules of Parliament is to break them.[90] (3), A great deal of time was also wasted in discussing the Royal Titles Bill, to which the Liberals offered an amount of opposition out of all proportion to the significance of the measure.

The Royal Titles Bill was introduced by the Prime Minister on the 7th of February. He had some idea that it would be an offence against the prerogative if he stated what the new title was to be, but it was said that the Queen, ever since the Duchess of Edinburgh had claimed precedence over her sisters-in-law, on the ground that hers was an Imperial, whilst theirs was a Royal title, desired to be styled Empress of India. On the other hand, most people objected to change the Queen’s designation. Why, it was asked, should the successor of Egbert wish to be a modern Empress? To insert India in the existing form of the Royal title would adequately meet any

real necessity for change. The Imperial title was also surrounded with evil associations, and it suggested that Imperialism or personal Government, tempered by casual appeals for support to the democracy or the Army over the head of Parliament, was the end aimed at by the Ministerial policy. Mr. Disraeli’s haughty refusal to communicate the new title to the House of Commons was met by a motion that no progress be made with the Bill till the title was revealed. The Prime Minister accordingly yielded the point, and promised to give the necessary explanations before the Bill was read a second time. The debate on the Second Reading showed clearly that the House of Commons was hostile to the Bill; but as the Government gave a pledge that the title should be used in India only, the Second Reading was carried. This pledge was soon broken, for the Proclamation was made, not that the new title should be used in India, but that it might be used

everywhere save in the United Kingdom. The Peers were as reluctant as the Commons to sanction the adoption of any exotic titles by the Crown, and the Court did not scruple to bring personal pressure to bear on them for the purpose of overcoming their threatened opposition. Lord Shaftesbury was summoned to Windsor in early spring, and as it was twenty years since he had been the Queen’s guest, he says in his Diary that he assumed his invitation was brought about by the controversy then raging over the Royal Titles Bill. “I dread it [the visit],” he writes in his Diary, on the 12th of March, “the cold, the evening dress, the solitude, for I am old, and dislike being far away from assistance should I be ill at night.... She [the Queen] sent for me in 1848 to consult me on a very important matter. Can it be so now?” The next entry showed his foreboding to be correct. He says, on the 14th of March, “Returned from Windsor. I am sure it was so, though not distinctly avowed. Her Majesty personally said nothing.” But though she did not discuss the views he expressed to her, a Lord-in-Waiting formally requested him to communicate them to Mr. Disraeli. Mr. Disraeli paid no heed to them, and Lord Shaftesbury accordingly moved (3rd of April), in the House of Lords, an Address to the Queen praying her not to take the title of Empress. He pointed out that in time it would lose its present impression of feminine softness, and be transformed into “Emperor,” whereupon “it must have an air military, despotic, offensive, and intolerable.” To scoff as Mr. Disraeli had done at the popular dislike to the Imperial title as a mere “sentiment” was a mistake. “Loyalty itself,” observed Lord Shaftesbury, “was a sentiment, and the same sentiment that attached the people to the word Queen, averted them from that of ‘Empress.’” In the division, though the Government obtained 137 votes in favour of what the _Saturday Review_ called a “vulgar and impolitic innovation,” eight Dukes and a large body of habitual courtiers voted with Lord Shaftesbury in the minority of 91.[91] The dismal predictions of the opponents of the measure have not been verified--possibly because their protests convinced the Court that any ostentatious display of modern Imperialism by an ancient Constitutional Monarchy would lead to a recrudescence of the Republic agitation. Fortunately the heated debates on the Titles Bill did not affect the personal popularity of the Sovereign. In the midst of the controversy the Queen visited Whitechapel on the 6th of March, to open a new wing of the London Hospital, which had been built by the munificence of the Grocers’ Company. Her Majesty was enthusiastically received, the only complaint being that she drove too fast along the route where the populace swarmed in their thousands to gaze on her. The visit was taken to be an intimation that the Crown was not a mere toy of the aristocratic quarters of the capital, and that when the Queen emerged from her seclusion it was not solely for the purpose of benefiting the West End shopkeepers. “The bees welcome their Queen,” was one of the mottoes displayed on the route. “I was sick and ye visited me,” was another, and both inscriptions reflected the kindly feeling with which her Majesty was greeted by industrial London. In the Hospital many interesting incidents were recorded, one of the most touching being that of a little girl who was suffering from a severe burn, and who had said she was sure she would get better if she “could only see the Queen.” When this was communicated to her Majesty, she smiled, went straightway to the child’s cot, where she kissed her, and soothed her with many tender words of comfort.

Sir Stafford Northcote’s Budget was a doleful statement of increased expenditure, and diminished income from a revenue that had ceased to be elastic. He estimated a deficit for the coming year of £774,000, and so he increased the income-tax to 5d. in the £, and added 4d. on the pound to the duty on tobacco. The latter tax was a mistake. It did not raise the price of tobacco to the poor, but it caused the manufacturers to adulterate their tobacco with water so as to add to its weight. The Session ended on the 15th of August, and next day the world heard with great surprise that Mr. Disraeli had become Earl of Beaconsfield, and to use his own jocose expression, that, “abandoning the style of Don Juan for that of Paradise Lost,” he would in future lead the House of Lords. Sir Stafford Northcote was left to represent him in the House of Commons.

On the 17th of August the Queen unveiled the Scottish National Memorial of Prince Albert, which had been erected in Charlotte Square, Edinburgh. The monument consisted of a colossal equestrian statue of the Prince Consort, and the four panels of the pedestal contained bas-reliefs illustrating notable events in his Royal Highness’s career. At each of the four corners of the platform on which the pedestal stands were groups of statuary, symbolical of the respect paid to Prince Albert’s memory by all classes of the community: one group typifying Labour, another Science and Art, a third the Army and Navy, and the fourth the Nobility. The equestrian figure and the panels were the work of the veteran Scottish sculptor, Mr. John Steell, who designed and superintended the construction of the memorial. The subordinate groups were executed by Mr. D. W. Stevenson, Mr. Clark Stanton, Mr. Brodie, and Mr. George McCallum, a young artist of high promise, who died before his group was completed. The ceremony of unveiling was unusually interesting. A gaily-decorated pavilion had been raised for the occasion. The Queen was accompanied by Prince Leopold, the Princess Beatrice, and the Duke of Connaught. Under the command of the Duke of Buccleuch, the Royal Company of Archers formed the bodyguard. The Duke of Roxburghe, Lord Rosebery, Sir W. Gibson-Craig, the Earl of Selkirk, the Earl of Lauderdale, Lord Provost Falshaw, and the Town Council, were among the distinguished persons present. After the statue had, at her Majesty’s command, been uncovered, she walked round it and expressed her entire satisfaction with the memorial. To signalise her appreciation of what had been done, and to manifest her desire to honour her “faithful city,” Mr. Falshaw was created a baronet, and a knighthood was conferred on Mr. John Steell, and on Mr. Herbert Oakeley, Professor of Music in the University.

During the Recess, the country could think of nothing save the Eastern Question. Mr. Gladstone’s taste

“For writing pamphlets and for roasting Popes”

was bent in a new direction, and he threw himself with all his might into the controversy that ended in turning English public opinion irrevocably against Turkey. Throughout the Session Mr. Gladstone and Lord Hartington had, with commendable patriotism, abstained from putting questions to Ministers with reference to their Eastern policy. Parliament and the country were, therefore, in the dark as to what was going on. But towards the end of

June disquieting rumours flew about to the effect that there had been a revolution in Bulgaria, and that the Turks had suppressed it by massacres of the most revolting barbarity. The Government met these tales with jaunty persiflage. On the 10th of July Mr. Forster put a question on the subject, which Mr. Disraeli answered by saying that he considered the reports exaggerated, nor did he think that torture had been resorted to by “an Oriental people who, I believe, seldom resort to torture, but generally terminate their connection with culprits in a more expeditious manner.”[92] This ill-timed jest was hailed with a great guffaw of laughter from the Ministerial Benches. It destroyed Mr. Disraeli’s authority in the country when the awful truth was revealed, not by the diplomatic agents of England, who strove hard to conceal it, but by two American gentlemen, Mr. J. A. Macgahan, a distinguished journalist, and Mr. Eugene Schuyler, the United States Consul-General in Turkey. They went to Philippopolis on the 25th of July, and Mr. Macgahan’s description of what he saw in the country, which had been ravaged by the Turks, when published in the _Daily News_, sent a thrill of horror through the

(_From a Photograph by J. Moffat, Edinburgh._)]

civilised world. The partisans of Turkey were enraged beyond self-control, and vowed that the worst of all outrages that had been committed was that which was perpetrated by the publication of Mr. Macgahan’s report on the brutalities of the Turkish soldiery. The wild work of the Sepoys at Cawnpore was indeed merciful and humane compared with what had been done by the Turks at Batak. Indiscriminate butchery could alone be laid to the charge of the Indian mutineers. But in Bulgaria, before the Turk murdered his victims, he inflicted on them fiendish tortures and bestial outrages. The Province was one vast desolation covered with blackened ruins, devastated fields, putrefying corpses, and bleached skeletons. Neither age nor sex had been spared. The land would have been as silent as a desert, save for the wailing of the scattered remnant of the Christian population who had eluded the vengeance of their oppressors. As for the Porte--whose promises of reform in Bulgaria were cheerily cited by Mr. Disraeli to cast doubt on the descriptions of these atrocities--it gave but one sign of action. It promoted Achmed Aga, the barbarian who was responsible for all this wickedness, to be Governor of the Province which he had laid waste.”[93] The effect of these revelations on public opinion was heightened by Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet, entitled “Bulgarian Horrors,” and by his speech at Blackheath on the 9th of September, wherein he convicted the Government of apologising for Turkish barbarities, when it could no longer venture to deny their existence. He laid down the lines of the new Eastern policy which England must support. The Turkish officials must be expelled from Bulgaria “bag and baggage,” and the European Provinces of Turkey granted such powers of self-government under the suzerainty of the Sultan, as would protect them from being seized by Austria and Russia on the one hand and devastated by Asiatic savages on the other. Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Derby, in subsequent speeches, seemed to adopt the principle of Mr. Gladstone’s policy. They admitted that it was the duty of England to join the civilised Powers in preventing Turkey from opening again the floodgates of lust, rapine, and murder in Bulgaria, and the English people for the first time understood how, with the cries of their tortured neighbours ringing in their ears, the Servians and Montenegrins had flown to arms.

Some Conservative writers and speakers still tried to persuade the world that the Russian Government had bribed the Turkish Pashas to commit and the Bulgarians to submit to outrages, in order to discredit Ottoman rule in Europe. But their efforts were futile, and the word went forth from all sides that never again would England draw her sword, as in 1854, to save Turkey from the consequences of her incurable barbarism. Strange to say, Lord Beaconsfield failed to gauge the strength of this feeling. On the 20th of September, in his speech at Aylesford, he neither adopted nor rejected the policy suggested by Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Derby, but he spoke in a querulous tone of the popular meetings which were being held all over England expressing sympathy with Bulgaria and urging the Government to shield her from the cruelty of her oppressors. The agitation, he said, was “impolitic, and founded on erroneous data.” Those who got up these meetings, he declared, were guilty of outrages on “the principle of patriotism, worse than any of those Bulgarian atrocities of which we have heard so much.” His negative policy which destroyed the Berlin Memorandum without putting any counter proposals in its place, would, he contended, have had a happy issue in negotiations. These, however, were upset by the unexpected Servian declaration of war against Turkey, which was prompted by “the Secret Societies.” Yet England had signed the Andrassy Note, which warned Turkey that this unexpected war would be waged against her by Servia, unless she granted the reforms demanded in the Note. When Turkey, instead of granting these reforms, massacred the population that craved for them, it was absurd to suppose that “the Secret Societies of Europe,” rather than the popular sympathies of the Christian Slavs, forced the Servian Government into war. That the speech fell flat was seen by the polling at the Buckinghamshire Election next day, when in Lord Beaconsfield’s own county Mr. Freemantle only saved the seat from the attack of Mr. Rupert Carrington, the Liberal candidate, by the small majority of 186. There were now two voices in the Cabinet; for on the day after Lord Beaconsfield’s speech was made and was taken by Turkey to mean that she had the English Cabinet on her side, Lord Derby ordered Sir H. Elliot to go to the Sultan, and not only denounce the outrages in Bulgaria, but, in the name of the Queen, who was profoundly shocked by them, demand that the officials who perpetrated them be adequately punished. It is hardly necessary to say that the Sultan, imagining that the Prime Minister was all-powerful, paid no heed to remonstrances from the Foreign Secretary. On the 25th of September, the day after the war with Servia began, Sir H. Elliot pressed the Porte to make peace on terms which Lord Derby suggested, and which were most creditable to his diplomatic sagacity. Lord Derby’s proposals, if carried out, would have saved Turkey from the supreme disaster which was awaiting her, for they provided that the Porte should effectively guarantee administrative reforms in her Christian Provinces, while Servia and Montenegro should lay down their arms and return to the _status quo ante bellum_. The Porte would only accept an armistice which would have been unfair to Servia and Montenegro, and Servia would not accept a settlement which did not provide for the withdrawal of the barbarous soldiers of Turkey from Bulgaria. Whilst negotiations were pending, the Turks, on the 29th of October, beat down the Servian defence at Alexinatz, whereupon, to the mortification of England, the Czar effected in an instant that which Lord Derby, after many weary weeks of negotiation, had failed to accomplish. Ignatieff was instructed to tell the Porte that if it did not accept an armistice of six weeks within forty-eight hours, diplomatic relations between Turkey and Russia would cease. When the same threat had been delivered by the British Ambassador, the Turks ignored it; in fact, they were impudent enough to meet it with a counter-proposal so absurd, that the Italian Minister said they were obviously playing with England. Although strengthened by a great victory, they did not, however, dare to treat the representative of the Czar as if he were the representative of the Queen. They accepted his ultimatum without demur or delay, and thus owing to the feebleness of English diplomacy, Russia emerged with the honours of the game in which, up to the last moment, Lord Derby held the winning cards. This was, however, a minor matter. Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Derby had now given Russia not only a plausible pretext for taking the lead in dealing with the Eastern Question, but also an opportunity for intimating to the world that, in circumstances which extorted the sanction of the Continental Powers, she had the right, in case of a deadlock, to deal with it single-handed. In other words, the English Government, by allowing the Porte to trifle with it during September, 1876, flung away at one cast the only practical results won by the Crimean War.

The Czar now proposed that a coercive naval demonstration by the Powers should be made in the Bosphorus, but Lord Derby rejected the idea. After some weeks he suggested that a Conference of the Powers should be held to

consider the situation on the basis of his own excellent proposals for peace, which have been already described. The Conference was assented to, and Lord Derby to some extent retrieved the position he lost on the morrow of Alexinatz. The Czar had also given the English Government the fullest assurances that he had no design on Constantinople, and in proof of his sincerity he had withdrawn a suggestion he had thrown out for the temporary occupation of Bosnia and Bulgaria by Austrian and Russian troops, and frankly accepted the English proposals for a settlement. It has been seen that during the negotiations which led up to the Crimean War, whenever the question was on the point of being settled somebody always interfered in England and in France to break the accord of the Powers. On this occasion history repeated itself. On the 9th of November Lord Beaconsfield delivered a speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, which suppressed all information as to the conciliatory mood of the Czar, and not only terrified Englishmen into a belief that Russia was scheming to seize Bulgaria, but that England was determined to oppose her by arms. The Czar, on the other hand, in an address to the Notables of Moscow, said that he was “firmly resolved to act independently if necessary” to obtain justice for the Christian subjects of Turkey.[94] At Constantinople there was joy among the Pashas, for they argued that after Lord Beaconsfield’s Guildhall speech they might regard the verdict of the Conference with indifference. The Czar, on his side, by way of emphasising his Moscow speech, mobilised six _corps d’armée_,[95] and Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. Cross, in order to minimise the effect of Lord Beaconsfield’s threats, delivered addresses showing that they thought Turkey must be coerced if she trifled with Europe.[96] Lord Salisbury visited the European capitals on his way to the Conference at Constantinople, at which he was to represent England, and at each one he was informed that he must expect no aid in supporting Turkey. An appeal was made by the _Times_ to Prince Bismarck to check Russia--but in vain. When Lord Salisbury had an interview with Prince Bismarck he found he was virtually a diplomatic ally of Russia. In fact, ere he reached Constantinople, Lord Salisbury found that Lord Beaconsfield’s policy of applying the obsolete ideas of the Whigs of 1854 to solve the Eastern Question in 1876, had isolated England. In the preliminary Conference, from which the Turks were excluded, Mr. Gladstone’s plan of giving administrative autonomy to the European Provinces of Turkey was adopted, Lord Salisbury supporting it with great ability and skill.[97] He even consented to allow 6,000 troops from some minor State--Belgium was suggested--to support the International Commission for reorganising the Government of an autonomous Bulgaria. This scheme was to have been adopted by the Porte at a Plenary Conference. Relying on the support of Lord Beaconsfield, and misled by the denunciations of Lord Salisbury which appeared in the Ministerial Press--then busy manufacturing failure for the English representatives at the Conference--the Porte met the demands of the Powers for reform, by proclaiming a grotesque Parliamentary Constitution for the Ottoman Empire. But it obstinately refused to grant the reforms demanded by the Conference, which accordingly broke up on the 20th of January, 1877. The Ambassadors of the Powers were then recalled from Constantinople. On the 8th of December (1876) a National Conference, under the presidency of the Duke of Westminster, and representing not only the heads of the Whig nobility, but most of the leaders of literature, science, and art, the High Church clergy, the Nonconformists, and politicians of every shade of Liberal opinion, met in St. James’s Hall to condemn Lord Beaconsfield’s policy, and protest against England giving armed aid to Turkey.

Early in 1876 the death of Lady Augusta Stanley, wife of the Dean of Westminster, removed one of the Queen’s most trusted friends. She had been for many years in personal attendance on her Majesty, and her services were so valuable that for many years her marriage with Dean Stanley had been postponed simply because the Royal Family could not spare her from their domestic circle. This gentle lady, throughout her life of unobtrusive usefulness at the Deanery of Westminster, served as one of the connecting-links between the upper, the middle, and the lower classes. She was as well known and as well loved in the dismal “slums” of London as in the radiant circle of the Court, and her death somewhat dimmed the brightness of the London season of 1876. It was a feverish, ill-conditioned season, agitated by financial scandals, by the pressure of hard times, by the failure of trade due to the uncertainty of the political situation, and by fierce and factious controversies as to the relative merits of Turks and Eastern Christians. To be in the mode one had to affect a strong admiration, not only for the ethics of the Koran, but for those of the Bashi-Bazouk, and a compassionate regret that Christianity had failed to elevate the European subjects of the Sultan, to the plane of Asiatic civilisation. The china mania, or craze for collecting old pottery, represented the fashionable movement in Art. Rinking, or skating on roller-skates in very mixed assemblies,[98] was the favourite form of physical recreation, and persons of quality kept their intellects alive by holding the spelling competitions known as “Spelling Bees.” Besides the “hard times” due to the collapse of investments, the Colorado beetle and the tropical heat of summer were added to the torments of the time; and the publication of the Domesday Book, showing that 710 individuals owned more than one-fourth of the soil of England and Wales, still further aggravated the uneasiness of a territorial aristocracy, whose margin of income for expenditure on luxuries was daily diminishing. The year closed with the sudden return of the Polar Expedition under Sir George Nares. Its record of achievement was most meagre, and its retreat after enduring only one winter in the ice was felt to be discreditable to the manhood of the British Navy. It was, however, discovered that the disaster was due to a terrible outbreak of scurvy in the crews of the Arctic ships, which was traced to their neglect to use lime-juice. The reputation of the explorers for pluck and endurance was thus redeemed at the expense of their intelligence.

The daily papers were filled with glowing accounts of the proclamation of the Queen as Empress of India (Kaiser-i-Hind) at Delhi, in the presence of the Viceroy and the great feudatories of the Empire on the 1st of January, 1877. The ceremony was accompanied by salvoes of artillery. A banner and a medal were given to the Princes to commemorate the event, and five of the most powerful magnates, Holkar, Scindiah, the Maharajah of Cashmere, the Maharajah of Travancore, and the Maharanee of Oodeypore, were granted rank, typified by salutes of twenty-one guns, equivalent to that of the Nizam. But as the viceregal salute was raised to thirty-one guns, Holkar and Scindiah, whose claim was to hold higher status than the Viceroy in their own dominions, and equal rank with him elsewhere, went away discontented. The scenic display was a little tawdry and theatrical, and grizzled Anglo-Indians, who had been accustomed to see austere statesmen or stern soldiers on the viceregal throne, were perplexed to find the Empress represented by a Viceroy who appeared to enjoy keenly the Orientalism of the function, and saw no absurdity in representing the majesty of Empire from the back of an elephant, which had been painted white for the occasion. Yet the ceremony was not without a deep meaning. It represented the final triumph of the new system which was introduced into India by Canning, the system by which, instead of ruling India by a paternal bureaucracy, whose aim was to sweep away all magnates who stood between it and the people, the hereditary rights of the native Princes were recognised, and they themselves admitted as corner-stones in the fabric of Empire of which the Kaiser-i-Hind was now proclaimed the apex and crown. It was, therefore, not without significance that the only class unrepresented at the Coronation was the Indian people. Yet one occasionally heard of the Indian people. A quarter of a million of them had been drowned by a cyclone in Bengal when the debates on the Imperial title were going on in London. Eight millions of them were in the agonies of famine in Central India when that title was proclaimed at Delhi.

(_From a Photograph by Russell and Sons._)]