Chapter XXV: England in Egypt

The Duke of Albany’s Marriage Announced--Mr. Bradlaugh
Again--Procedure Reform--The Closure at Last--The Peers Co-operate
with the Parnellites--Their Attacks on the Land Act--Mr.
Forster’s Policy of “Thorough”--A Nation under Arrest--Increase
in Outrages--Sir J. D. Hay and Mr. W. H. Smith bid for the
Parnellite Vote--A Political Dutch Auction--The Radicals Outbid
the Tories--Release of Mr. Parnell and the Suspects--The
Kilmainham Treaty--Victory of Mr. Chamberlain--Resignation of Mr.
Forster and Lord Cowper--The Tragedy in the Phœnix Park--Ireland
Under Lord Spencer--Firm and Resolute Government--Coercion
Revived--The Arrears Bill--The Budget--England in Egypt--How
Ismail Pasha “Kissed the Carpet”--Spoiling the Egyptians--Mr.
Goschen’s Scheme for Collecting the Debt--The Dual Control--The
Ascendency of France--“Egypt for the Egyptians”--The Rule of
Arabi--Riots in Alexandria--The Egyptian War--Murder of Professor
Palmer--British Occupation of Egypt--The Queen’s Monument to Lord
Beaconsfield--Attempt to Assassinate Her Majesty--The Queen’s Visit
to Mentone--Marriage of the Duke of Albany.

The Parliament of 1882 was opened on the 7th of February, and the Queen’s Speech announced the approaching marriage of the Duke of Albany. Foreign affairs were hopefully touched on. Local self-government, London municipal reform, bankruptcy reform, corrupt practices at elections, the conservancy of rivers, and the codification of the Criminal Law, were the subjects of promised legislation. Very early in the Session Mr. Bradlaugh renewed his attempt to take the Parliamentary Oath, but was again excluded from the precincts of the House by a resolution moved by Sir Stafford Northcote. On the 21st of February the House refused to issue a new writ for Northampton, and Mr. Bradlaugh, after the division, proceeded to swear himself in at the Clerk’s table. Sir Stafford Northcote accordingly moved and carried a resolution expelling him from the House. This caused a fresh election to be held at Northampton, the result of which was that Mr. Bradlaugh was again returned by a triumphant majority. On the 6th of March Sir Stafford Northcote proposed a resolution excluding Mr. Bradlaugh from the precincts of the House, and then, sated with its saturnalia of intolerance, the Opposition permitted Ministers to get on with the most pressing question of the hour--the reform of Procedure. The proposals of the Government were, in the main, identical with those which the Speaker had designed to defeat obstruction in the previous Session; but they were to be of permanent application, and not dependent on the carrying of a vote of urgency. It was provided that a debate might be closed, on the Speaker’s initiation, by a bare majority, only there must, in that case, be at least two hundred Members voting in favour of closure if as many as forty members opposed it; but if fewer than forty opposed, at least one hundred would be required to carry it. Non-contentious business relating to Law and Commerce might be delegated to two Grand Committees. The Tories objected to closure by a bare majority, and they fortunately found a Liberal--Mr. Marriott, Q.C.--to move an amendment to this part of Mr. Gladstone’s plan, and the debate began on the 20th of February. In the meantime the Irish Home Rulers, who had not scrupled to impede the working of the Land Act, found unexpected allies in the Conservative Peers. They attacked the Act as a failure, and carried a motion appointing a hostile Committee to inquire into its working. It has always been the practice of the Peers, when they dared not cut down the plant of Reform, to insist on pulling it up to see if its roots were growing, and in this case their strategy was ingeniously adapted to suit the policy of obstruction in the Commons. It was necessary to neutralise the hostile vote of the Peers by a Resolution in the Commons condemning the proposed inquiry as mischievous; and, though this was carried, it gave the Tory and Parnellite opponents of the Government an excellent chance of wasting time by re-opening and discussing the whole Irish Land Question. The Procedure debates were thus suspended for about a month, Mr. Marriott’s amendment being rejected on the 30th of March. Negotiations for a compromise between Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. Gladstone were interrupted by a catastrophe which revolutionised the Irish policy of the Government, namely, the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Thomas Burke in the Phœnix Park, Dublin.

During the first two months of the Session the Irish Party vied with the Conservatives in assailing the Land Act. Radicals began to murmur against the development of Mr. Forster’s coercive policy, every incident and detail of which was subjected by the Irish Members to bitter criticism and violent denunciation. In the meantime, Mr. Forster’s scheme for pacifying Ireland was not prospering, and it was seen that he had made a fatal mistake when he pledged himself to suppress agitation, if he were only empowered to arrest the leading agitators. From the day they were imprisoned, Ireland drifted towards anarchy and terrorism. Then the experiment was tried of arresting, not only the leaders, but their lieutenants. Finally Mr. Forster crowded the prisons with the rank and file of the Home Rule host. Men began to wonder whether the gaol accommodation of Ireland was adequate for Mr. Forster’s policy. But the more people he put in prison the worse the country grew, the more did evictions increase, and the less rent was paid. A bid for the Irish vote was now made by the Tories. They put up Sir John Hay to move that the detention of the “suspects” was “repugnant to the spirit of the Constitution.” Through Mr. W. H. Smith, in one of the debates on the Land Act, they offered the Nationalists a scheme for buying out the landlords at the expense of the State, and establishing peasant proprietorship in Ireland, such as had been advocated by Mr. Davitt and Mr. Parnell. It was clear that the Tory-Parnellite alliance was becoming a formidable combination, and the Radicals urged the Government to make terms with the Nationalist Party whilst there was yet time. But Mr. Gladstone hesitated, and then the Radicals moved without him. An intrigue, instigated by Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke, was set on foot to get Mr. Forster removed from his place as Irish Secretary. Through Captain O’Shea as an intermediary, Mr. Parnell was approached. He had certainly seen with alarm the increase in evictions, and knew that if the struggle were prolonged the financial resources of the Leaguers must fail them. He was, therefore, disposed to come to terms. Letters were exchanged, in one of which Mr. Parnell said that a promise to deal with the question of arrears would do much to bring peace to Ireland, for the Nationalists would then be able to exert themselves, with some hope of success, in stopping outrages. But the Land Act would have to be extended to leaseholders, and the Purchase Clauses enlarged. If this programme were carried out, wrote Mr. Parnell on the 28th of August to Captain O’Shea, it “would enable us to co-operate cordially for the future with the Liberal Party in forwarding Liberal principles; and I believe that the Government at the end of the Session would, from the state of the country, feel themselves thoroughly justified in dispensing with future coercive measures.” This letter was shown to Mr. Forster, and it seems that the Cabinet was also put in possession of Mr. Parnell’s views. Mr. Forster was not of opinion that they justified his release. Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke thought that they displayed a reasonable spirit which would justify a new departure of conciliation in Irish policy. Mr. Parnell, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Davitt, and the other suspects were therefore released, and Lord Cowper, the Irish Viceroy, and Mr. Forster resigned office. Mr. Forster was of opinion that Mr. Parnell should have been compelled to promise publicly not to resist the law, or failing that, that a stronger Coercion Act should have been passed before he was set at liberty. Lord Spencer was appointed to succeed Lord Cowper, and Lord Frederick Cavendish succeeded Mr. Forster as Chief Secretary. On the 6th of May, within forty-eight hours of their appointment, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke, the Under-secretary for Ireland, were butchered by a band of assassins in broad daylight in the Phœnix Park, Dublin. Mr. Forster, in fact, had allowed a secret society of assassins, calling themselves “Invincibles,” to organise itself at his own doors, whilst he was scouring the country far and wide to arrest and imprison the patriotic but respectable _bourgeoisie_ of Ireland as suspects. In his speech condemning the release of the suspects, whilst he maintained that Ireland was not yet quiet, he had declared that the country was quieter than it had been, that the Land League was crushed, and boycotting checked! He had never suspected that the place of the Land League had been taken by a secret society of desperadoes called the “Invincibles” and that assassination was to be substituted for boycotting. His administration had been indeed singularly ineffective. With power in his hands, as absolute as that of a Russian Minister of Police, he seems never to have suspected the existence of the band of murderers who had organised themselves in Dublin, and who had dogged his own steps in sight of the detectives who watched over him day after day seeking for a chance of slaying him. This tragic event upset the scheme for “a new departure,” which Mr. Chamberlain had induced the Government to essay. Though Englishmen behaved with great calmness and self-restraint after the first shock of horror which the Phœnix Park murders sent through the nation had passed away, they were resolved to offer no more concessions to Ireland till the Government took fresh powers for enforcing law and suppressing outrages. Mr. Gladstone interpreted the national will accurately when he determined not to withdraw the conciliatory portion of his Irish programme. But he recast his plans, and gave his coercive precedence over his remedial measures.

(_From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company._)]

The Irish Party were probably sincere in regretting and in condemning the murders. The _prestige_ of their Parliamentary policy was sullied when it ended in a new Coercion Bill for Ireland, and in the demonstration of their impotence to control the forces which they pretended to have in hand. The Tories and Ministerialists were alike discredited by the untoward mishap. The alliance between the Tory Party and the Home Rulers had influenced every Parliamentary bye-election and every division in the House of Commons. The motion of Sir John Hay condemning the imprisonment of the “suspects” and the offer of Mr. W. H. Smith’s scheme for expropriating the landlords were palpable bids for the Parnellite vote. By releasing the “suspects,” promising to deal with the question of arrears, and to take the Land Purchase Question in hand, the Ministry outbade their rivals. But the Opposition and the Cabinet were alike guilty of intriguing and negotiating with men whom in people they pretended to denounce as irreconcilable enemies of the Empire; and the end of it all was the tragedy in the Phœnix Park! That affair had only a coincidental relation to the antecedent Party intrigues; but the people saw connection where there was only coincidence. Hence Englishmen for a time lost faith in their public men. They felt towards them as their forefathers did towards Charles I. when the Glamorgan Treaty was revealed, and towards Lord Melbourne and Lord John Russell when the “Lichfield House” compact between O’Connell and the Whigs was unmasked. For a time this feeling cowed partisans below the gangway on both sides who had been mainly responsible for the negotiations and intrigues with the Home Rulers. The Government tried to atone for its misfortune by continuing Lord Spencer as Irish Viceroy and appointing Mr. George Otto Trevelyan as Irish Secretary, Lord Spencer to be entirely responsible for Irish policy in the Cabinet. This was the best possible selection that could be made. Lord Spencer represented the type of Englishman who, from his courage, common sense, love of justice, business-like habits, administrative skill, and disinterested patriotism, was most likely to establish an enduring and endurable system in Ireland, if that were to be done by firm and resolute government tempered by strong popular sympathies. Mr. Trevelyan was patient, industrious, and courteous as an administrator, and his success as a man of letters rendered him in some degree a _persona grata_ to the Irish Party, most of whose leaders were writers for the Press. The new Coercion Bill was introduced on the 11th of May, and read a second time on the 19th. It suspended trial by jury in certain cases and in proclaimed districts; gave the police fresh powers of arrest and search, and revived the Alien Act; it defined as punishable offences intimidation, incitement to crime, and participation in secret conspiracies and illegal assemblies; it rendered newspapers liable to suppression for inciting to violence, widened the summary jurisdiction of stipendiary magistrates, and levied fines of compensation on districts stained with murderous outrages. It was at once seen that the chief merit of the Bill lay in the fact that it frankly attacked and punished criminals, thereby reversing, and by implication condemning, the feeble and futile policy of Mr. Forster, who attacked and imprisoned at will persons who were merely suspected of crime or of inciting to crime. Great doubts were expressed as to the utility of the Press clauses, Englishmen who are not political partisans being at all times sceptical as to the good that is done by suppressing newspapers and bottling up all their evil teaching in private manifestoes for secret circulation in disaffected districts. Some Radicals also thought the powers of arrest after nightfall given to the police were rather vague, and suggested too painfully a revival of Mr. Forster’s fatal principle of coercion on suspicion. But, on the whole, the Bill was well received by the best men of both parties, the responsible Tory leaders giving the Government much loyal support, though some of their followers carped at the measure.[177] The Bill was obstructed in the usual manner by the Irish Members, who had but few Radical allies. On the 16th of June only seven clauses out of thirty had gone through Committee. On the 29th it was clear a crisis had come, and on the 30th there was a disorderly all-night sitting, which ended in the suspension of sixteen Irish Members. Later in the day nine others were suspended, and, after sitting for twenty-eight hours, the Bill passed through Committee. Urgency was voted for its next stages, and the Bill read a third time on the 7th of July. The Lords passed it promptly, and it became law on the 12th of July.

Along with the Coercion Bill the promised Arrears Bill was introduced, and read a second time before Whitsuntide. It applied to holdings under £30 of rental, and empowered the Land Courts to pay half the arrears of poor tenants out of the Irish Church Surplus--but no payment was to exceed a year’s rent, and all past arrears were to be cancelled. After prolonged opposition from the Conservatives and from the House of Lords, the measure was passed on the 10th of August. These Bills exhausted the legislative energies of the Government; indeed, Mr. Fawcett’s Bill establishing a Parcel Post, and Mr. Chamberlain’s Bill enabling corporations to adopt Electric Lighting by obtaining provisional orders from the Board of Trade, were the only measures that had not to be abandoned. The Budget estimated expenditure at £84,630,000 and revenue at £84,935,000, a reduction of between £900,000 and £800,000 respectively on the preceding year’s disbursements and receipts. The surplus was small. The revenue was stagnant, and there was no scope for fiscal changes. A Vote of Credit for the Egyptian Expedition had to be provided, which caused Mr. Gladstone to raise the Income Tax to 6¾d. in the pound.

The Egyptian difficulty, in fact, during this Session, became acute. It was seized by the Fourth Party as a peg on which to hang an endless series of questions to the Government, of an embarrassing character. From questioning, Lord Randolph Churchill proceeded to wage an irregular guerilla warfare, most harassing to Ministers engaged in delicate diplomatic negotiations on which depended the issues of peace and war. In this unusual course he and his friends were supported by Mr. Chaplin and Lord Percy, and aided by many fiery assaults made by Lord Salisbury. Sir Stafford Northcote and the majority of the ex-Ministers in the House of Commons disapproved, at first, of tactics which seemed to them an unprecedented violation of the decencies of English party warfare. But Sir Stafford’s reserve and prudence, though appreciated by the country, were so distasteful to his followers that ere the Session ended he found he had to submit to be their instrument in using the foreign complications of the nation for the interests of faction. Had he refused, the combatant section of his followers would have rebelled against his authority. It was part of the irony of the situation that the Egyptian difficulty was one of the evil legacies which the Foreign Policy of the Tory Party in 1879-1880 left the country to deal with. In fact, the Egyptian crisis of 1882 was the logical consequence of the system of Dual Control with which Lord Salisbury had afflicted Egypt when he went into partnership with France in managing the finances of that country for the benefit of its usurious foreign creditors. It was in 1866 that Ismail Pasha took the first step that gradually led to his downfall. To use his own phrase, he “kissed the carpet” at Constantinople--in other words, bribed the Porte to grant him the title of Khedive and confirm the succession of the Pashalik in his family. Again and again did he “kiss the carpet,” till in 1872 he was practically an independent Sovereign wielding absolute personal power over Egypt--the suzerainty of Turkey being marked only by the annual tribute, the Imperial cypher on the coinage, the weekly prayer for the Sultan in the Mosque, and the preservation of the _jus legationis_. In 1875 he abolished the Consular Courts before which suits between Egyptians and foreigners were tried, substituting for them the Mixed Tribunals on which representative judges of the Great Powers sat. At this period the crop of financial wild oats which Ismail Pasha had sown had ripened. He had spent money lavishly not only on the Suez Canal, but on every conceivable scheme that wily European speculators could persuade him was an improvement. He had borrowed this money on the principles that regulate the financial transactions of a rich young spendthrift and a usurer of the lowest class. In 1864 he borrowed £5,700,000. In the succeeding years loans for £3,000,000, £1,200,000, and £2,000,000 were added. In 1873 there was another loan for £32,000,000--which, according to Mr. Cave, swallowed up every resource of Egypt.[178] The Khedive’s private loans came to £11,000,000, and the floating debt to £26,000,000 in 1876. How these last loans were to be met, seeing that the 1873 loan swallowed up all the resources of the country, was a perplexing point. The usurers would lend the Khedive no more money, and in 1875 England helped him to meet the interest on existing loans by giving him £4,000,000 for the Suez Canal Shares.

Something might have been done for Egypt, even at this time, if England had occupied the country; but Mr. Disraeli lost the golden opportunity, which did not return till France and Russia were in a position to offer an effective resistance which could not be bought off. The Khedive appealed for money to England, and Mr. Disraeli sent Mr. Cave to report upon his affairs. Mr. Cave said in effect that it was impossible to help the Khedive with money unless Englishmen were prepared to lose it. That report, however, did not touch the position of those who held with Mr. Edward Dicey that if England could establish a Protectorate in Egypt, and administer her affairs like an Indian Native State, it would be quite possible to extricate her from her financial difficulties without inflicting injustice on her creditors. In the meantime, the foreign bondholders sued the Khedive in his own Mixed Tribunals. They got judgment against him, but were unable to execute it. In May, 1876, his Highness met this judgment by a decree of repudiation, whereupon Germany indignantly protested, and France and England followed suit on behalf of the bondholders of their respective nationalities. It was here that Lord Salisbury first left the traditional lines of sound Foreign Policy. He interfered in Egypt, not on the ground that national interests had to be safeguarded, but--like Lord Palmerston in the case of Greece--to protect the interests of a few speculative individuals who had a bad debt to collect from Ismail Pasha. British national interests in Egypt, when really imperilled, can only be protected effectively in one way--by the occupation of the country, or its administration under a British Protectorate. They cannot be protected by entering into an ambiguous partnership for regulating the Khedive’s finances with Powers whose interests in Egypt are not national, but are represented by those of their subjects who have lent Egypt money on bad security. The Imperial interests of England demand that the government of Egypt shall be good and effective all round, so that the highway to India shall be through an orderly and contented people. The interests of the other Powers demand that the government of Egypt, whether good or bad, must be such as will enable her to give the Shylocks, whom they represent, their pound of flesh. It was for the interest of England to aim at a Protectorate, just as it was for the interests of the other Powers to aim merely at obtaining financial control over Egypt; and the fatal blunder which Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury made was in identifying England, not with British, but with foreign interests in Egypt. The French and English bondholders could not agree on the steps which should be taken to extort their money from the overtaxed Egyptian peasantry; and Mr. Goschen and M. Joubert were sent out to devise a scheme for consolidating the Egyptian debt in the common interests of all bondholders. By estimating the annual average revenue which could be extracted from the wretched fellaheen at £12,000,000 instead of £8,000,000, which would have been high enough, the Goschen-Joubert scheme showed in 1876 that the Khedive could pay, as interest and sinking fund, seven per cent. interest on a consolidated debt of £100,000,000. Ismail agreed to pay this at first, but soon resisted, on the ground that the estimate of revenue was erroneous. The French Government then determined to appoint a Commission to investigate the resources of Egypt, which England was induced to join. This Commission reported that as the Khedive had appropriated to himself one-fifth of the land of Egypt,[179] the first thing he should do was to hand a million acres of it over to the creditors of the State.

The Khedive now formed a Ministry under Nubar Pasha, in which Mr. Rivers Wilson, the English Commissioner, was given the Ministry of Finance. The French Government displayed so much jealousy of this step, that Lord Salisbury, yielding to their demands, permitted the Khedive to appoint M. de Blignières as Mr. Wilson’s colleague. This was the beginning of the Dual Control of Egypt by two Governments with opposite interests, from which all subsequent mischief arose. The Khedive soon dismissed Nubar’s Ministry, and then France and England, on the threat of Germany to interfere, arranged with the Sultan to depose Ismail Pasha. He was succeeded by his son Tewfik, in whose Ministry the care of finance was entrusted to M. de Blignières and Mr. Baring, who was afterwards succeeded by Mr. Colvin. The effect of the Dual Control was very simple. It increased the bureaucracy but diminished its efficiency, for wherever an English official was appointed M. de Blignières insisted on planting a French colleague by his side to watch and hamper him. A similar vigilance was exhibited by the English Controller. But above the Dual Ministry of Finance there was established the International Commission of the Public Debt, representing England, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany. This Commission watched over the administration of the Dual Ministry of Finance. It was entitled, if it could agree on a course of action, to demand from the Ministry of Finance more efficient management, and of course it distributed the sum handed over by that Ministry for payment of the public creditors. The French and English Ministers or Controllers of Finance were not removable save by consent of their Governments. They had the right to seats in the Ministerial Council, and to advise on all measures of general importance. As nothing can be done in Egypt without money, nothing could be done without them. At first, Major Baring was the most active of the controllers. But he was removed, and Mr. Colvin, who took his place, played a subordinate part to M. de Blignières, who had more experience and force of character. Virtually De Blignières governed the country. History does not record the occasion on which England as a Great Power occupied a position more ignominious than the one she now held in. Egypt, where her influence had been paramount till Lord Salisbury consented to share it with France. The government of the Dual Control was conducted on simple principles. Egypt was managed not for the Egyptians, but for the bondholders. Everything and everybody were sacrificed for the Budget, and the Budget was constructed primarily with a view to securing the Debt and the payment of the European officials, who swarmed over the land like locusts. At the time when Cyprus was occupied it must now be stated that Lord Salisbury conciliated France, ever

(_From the Portrait by Frederick Villiers in A. M. Broadley’s “How we Defended Arabi and his Friends.”_)]

jealous of her Syrian interests, by supporting an extension of her influence in Tunis. Tunis, however, in 1881 had, in spite of protests from England and Italy, become simply a French dependency, and the growing power of Blignières at Cairo forced acute observers to say of Egypt--

“Mutato nomine, de te
Fabula narratur.”

The natives now grew restless under the Dual Control, and this restlessness ended in a military revolt, headed by Colonel Arabi Bey, whose watchword was

(_From a Photograph by Fradelle and Young._)]

“Egypt for the Egyptians.” This rising the Khedive pacified by dismissing the Ministry of Riaz Pasha, who was succeeded by Cherif Pasha. But though Cherif reigned Arabi ruled, and it soon became evident that the partners in the Dual Control could not agree on the course that should be adopted towards him. The Egyptian Assembly of Notables, on the 18th of January, 1882, asserted their right to control the Budget. The French and English Controllers disputed this right, and then a new Ministry was formed, of which Mahmoud Samy was the nominal, but Arabi Bey, now Minister of War, the real head. M. Gambetta, who had vainly endeavoured to induce England to join France in coercing Arabi and the national party, fell from power; M. de Freycinet succeeded him, and his policy was one of non-intervention. The Chamber of Notables refused to withdraw from their position. M. de Blignières, finding he could get no support from M. de Freycinet, resigned, and thus ended Lord Salisbury’s experiment of the Dual Control. Arabi was loaded with decorations. The rank and title of Pasha were given him, and he was virtually Dictator of the country, with no policy save that of “Egypt for the Egyptians.” Alarmed by menaced massacres of foreigners, France and England now sent their fleets to Alexandria. The English and French Consuls, in a Joint Note to the Khedive, advised the expulsion of Arabi, who had been intriguing with the Bedouins. Arabi resigned, but no new Ministry could be formed, and the army threatened to repudiate any authority save that of the Sultan, who sent Dervish Pasha to quiet the country. On the 11th of June there was a riot in Alexandria; the British Consul was injured, and many French and English subjects were slain. This was the signal for a stampede of the terrified foreign population of Alexandria, where the Khedive held his Court, and of Cairo. A Cabinet, patronised by Germany and Austria, under Ragheb Pasha, was formed; but Arabi was again Minister of War. In July Arabi ostentatiously strengthened the forts of Alexandria, but on the 10th Sir Beauchamp Seymour warned him that if the forts were not surrendered for disarmament, they would be bombarded by the British fleet. The French Government refused to join in this coercive measure, and sent their ships to Port Said. On the 11th the fortifications were shattered by the British cannonade; but as the town was not occupied, it was seized by a fanatical mob, who wrought havoc in it for two days. A force was then tardily landed by Admiral Seymour, who restored order, and brought back the Khedive from Ramleh, where he had fled, to Ras-el-tin. Arabi and the Egyptian army had taken up an entrenched position at Tel-el-Kebir, but were still professedly acting in the Khedive’s name. An English military expedition, under Sir Garnet Wolseley, was sent to disperse them, and secure the protection of the Canal.

A diplomatic mission under Professor Palmer of Cambridge, an accomplished Oriental scholar, who had acquired a great personal influence over the tribes of the Sinai, was sent to detach the Bedouins from Arabi, and engage them to assist in defending the Canal. The other members of the mission were Lieutenant Charrington, R.N., and Captain Gill, R.E., officers with a record of distinguished service which fitted them for their hazardous employment. They had no military escort, because the presence of one would have rendered their mission hopeless. A reconnaissance conducted with great skill by Professor Palmer, who travelled from Joppa through the Sinai desert disguised as a Syrian Mahometan of rank, had given every promise of success. But the members of the expedition were led by a treacherous guide into an ambuscade soon after starting from the Wells of Moses, and murdered and robbed by a band of brigands[180] (10th of August). But despite this melancholy occurrence the safety of the Canal was secured. By a movement conducted in swift secrecy Sir Garnet Wolseley sailed with his force from Alexandria to Ismailia on the 19th of August, his plan being to advance on Cairo by the Freshwater Canal. On the 28th Arabi, after a repulse at Kassassin, retired to his entrenchments at Tel-el-Kebir, which were carried by the British, on the 13th of September, after a long march by night over the desert sands. General Drury Lowe and a small force of cavalry pushed on to Cairo, which surrendered to them at the first summons, Arabi Pasha and Toulba Pasha, his lieutenant, giving themselves up as prisoners. The Khedive was reinstated in Cairo by the British troops, who were paraded before him on the 30th of September.

By a unique stroke of fortune, Mr. Gladstone’s Government had thus been enabled to secure for England the position of ascendency in Egypt which had been sacrificed by the Dual Control. France and the other Powers, having cast on England the burden of supporting the Khedive’s authority, had to accept a _fait accompli_, and submit to see a British army of occupation of 10,000 men quartered in Egypt. But the occupation was emphatically declared by Mr. Gladstone to be temporary, and he pledged England to terminate it whenever the Khedive could maintain himself without foreign aid. The war cost England £4,600,000, and it did much to restore for the time the waning popularity of the Ministry. Rewards and decorations were showered upon the victors. Peerages were bestowed on Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour and Sir Garnet Wolseley. As for Egypt, her Government was really under the control of the British Consul-General. England forbade the restoration of the Dual Control, and set limits to the organisation of the native Army. The native Police was put under the command of Baker Pasha, and the English Government rescued Arabi and the leaders of the insurgents from the native court-martial, which would have doomed them to death. When tried, they pleaded guilty to a charge of treason, and were exiled to Ceylon.

On the 27th of February a monument, which the Queen had commissioned Mr. Belt to prepare for the perpetuation of the memory of Lord Beaconsfield, was erected in Hughenden Church. It was a touching record of rare friendship between Sovereign and subject. The centre of the memorial is occupied by a profile portrait carved in low relief. Beneath, is a tablet bearing the following dedication penned by the Queen herself:--

To
the dear and honoured Memory
of
BENJAMIN, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD,
This memorial is placed by
his grateful and affectionate
Sovereign and Friend,
VICTORIA R.I.
“Kings love him that speaketh right.”--Proverbs xvi. 13.

February 27, 1882.

The year was marked by an attempt to assassinate the Queen, which created much public alarm. On the 2nd of March her Majesty was driving from Windsor Station to the Castle, when a poorly-dressed man shot at her carriage with a revolver. Before he could fire again a bystander struck down his arm and he was arrested. He was a grocer’s assistant from Portsmouth, named Roderick Maclean; his excuse was that he was starving, and he probably desired to draw attention to his case. He was tried next month at Reading Assizes, where it was shown that he had been under treatment as a lunatic for two years in an asylum in Weston-super-Mare, but had been dismissed cured. He was acquitted on the ground of insanity, and ordered to be placed in custody during her Majesty’s pleasure. The sympathy which was expressed by all classes with the Queen, when tidings of the outrage were published, was universal. On the night of Maclean’s arrest the National Anthem was sung in all the theatres, and from every quarter messages came pouring in congratulating her Majesty on her escape. These demonstrations caused her to address a touching letter of heartfelt thanks to the nation.

Another outrage on the Queen has to be set down in the record of 1882. On the 26th of May a young telegraph clerk, named Albert Young, was tried before Mr. Justice Lopes, and found guilty of threatening to murder the Queen and Prince Leopold. He sent a letter, purporting to come from an Irish Roman Catholic priest and fifty of his parishioners who had been evicted by their landlords, warning the Queen of her peril, and saying that if paid £40 a head these men would all emigrate. The money was to be sent to “A. Y.,” at the “M., S., & L.” Office, Doncaster. Young was sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude.

On the 14th of March her Majesty left Windsor for Portsmouth, accompanied by the Princess Beatrice. From thence she sailed to Cherbourg, and proceeded to Mentone, where she arrived on the 17th. The Chalêt des Rosiers, where the Queen lived, was a newly-built villa, standing on a small artificial plateau, fifty yards from the railway, and a hundred from the shore, about half-a-mile from the old town, and three-quarters of a mile from the ravine and bridge of St. Louis which divide Italy from France. Precipices, rugged steeps, abysmal ravines, and rocky beds of old torrents rise from behind the villa in wild confusion. Five miles away, mountains whose bases are traversed by terraces covered with orange groves, soar grandly into the sky. Her Majesty was soon joined by Prince Leopold, the King and Queen of Saxony, and Lord Lyons, and she made daily excursions in the neighbourhood. On the 21st of March there was a great _fête_, with splendid illuminations held in her honour, and she witnessed the scene from the balcony of her villa. Before leaving, on the 14th of April, the Queen thanked the authorities and the residents for contributing so cordially to the pleasure of her visit. As a memento of it, she presented the chief of the municipal band, who had composed a cantata in her honour, with a diamond breast-pin.

The marriage of the Duke of Albany was now approaching, and it was with deep regret that the Queen found it necessary to leave him at Mentone, as he had not recovered from the effects of an accident he had met with. The grant of £25,000 a year for his Royal Highness had been moved by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons on the 23rd of March, and carried by a vote of 387 to 42. Mr. Labouchere, however, opposed the vote, because he said the savings from the Civil List ought to be returned to the State by the Queen before any Royal grants were voted by Parliament. Mr. Broadhurst also thought that £25,000[181] a year was too much to vote for such a purpose in a country where the majority lived on weekly wages. Mr. Storey opposed voting public money save for public services, and described the House of Commons as “a large syndicate interested in expenditure.” But there was no new point raised in the debate, save Mr. Labouchere’s argument, based on the fact that George III., who had £1,000,000 a year of Civil List, maintained his own children. Mr. Gladstone, of course, challenged the precedent, by pointing out that Parliament had not entered into an implied contract with George III. to provide for his children. But for the first time he admitted that savings were hoarded up out of the Civil List. Only, he said, they were not large enough to provide for the maintenance of the Queen’s children, and he assured the House that after he had come to know the amount of them, his conclusion was that they were not more than were called for by the contingencies which might occur in such a family. As has been stated before, the Royal savings represent an insurance fund against family emergencies, which it would not be agreeable for the Queen to ask Parliament to meet for her.

On the 27th of April the marriage of the Duke of Albany with the Princess Hélène of Waldeck-Pyrmont was solemnised in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, with a sustained pomp and splendour rarely seen even in Royal pageants. Most extensive and elaborate arrangements had been made for the reception and processions of the Royal and illustrious guests, the Queen, the bridegroom, and the bride. On the morning of the 27th the earliest aspect of animation was lent to the peaceful tranquillity of the chapel by the arrival of a strong detachment of the Yeomen of the Guard, arrayed in their quaint Tudor costume, consisting of plaited ruff, low-crowned black velvet hat encircled by red and white roses, scarlet doublet embroidered with the Royal cognisance and initials in gold, purple sleeves, bullion quarterings, ruddy hose, and rosetted shoes. The Yeomen of the Guard were ranged at intervals throughout the length of the nave, and were speedily joined by a contingent of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, resplendent in scarlet uniforms profusely laced with gold. After the opening of the doors the edifice soon filled with ladies of rank, nobles, statesmen, warriors, and diplomatists. The day was recognised by the decorated as “a collar day”--_i.e._, the Knights did not wear the robes of their Order, but only the ribbons of the Garter, the Bath, the Thistle, and St. Patrick, with the collars and badges of gold. Constellations of stars, crosses, and ribbons marked the uniforms of the English generals, foreign ambassadors, and Ministers present in the choir, and flashed light on the grey and timeworn walls associated with the memories of Anne Boleyn, Catherine of Arragon, and Jane Seymour. At noon the drapery veiling the door was thrown aside, and the first procession--that of the Queen’s family and their Royal guests from the Continent--entered. After this glittering group had passed into the choir, the Queen’s procession appeared at the west door, when the brilliant array in the nave stood up, and the organ burst into the strains of Handel’s _Occasional Overture_. Her Majesty, who was in excellent health and spirits, bowed her acknowledgments to the salutations of the assembled guests. She was clad in widow’s sables with long gauze streamers, and wore the broad riband of the Garter and a magnificent parure of diamonds. The Koh-i-noor sparkled on her bosom, while her head-dress was surmounted with a glittering tiara girt by a small crown Imperial in brilliants. On entering the choir the Queen was conducted to her seat close to the south of the altar. The bridegroom’s procession next made its appearance. The Duke of Albany wore the scarlet and gold uniform of a colonel of Infantry. The Prince walked with some slight difficulty with the assistance of a stick. The bridegroom was supported by the Prince of Wales in the uniform of a Field Marshal, and by his brother-in-law, the Grand Duke of Hesse, also clad in scarlet. Last came the procession of the bride, heralded by the sound of cheering outside and the blare of trumpets. She was supported by her father, the Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, and by her brother-in-law, the King of the Netherlands, her train being borne by eight unmarried daughters of dukes, marquises, and earls, decked in white drapery trimmed with flowers. The celebration of the marriage ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by an array of Church dignitaries ranged behind the altar rails. The service was brief, with no enlarged choral accompaniments, but the spectacle was unusually impressive. There was not a vacant spot in the chapel; it was gorgeous with diverse colours and flashing with jewels and with the insignia of many grand Orders of chivalry. The scene, too, was at intervals suddenly wrapped in gloom and as suddenly bathed in light as the fitful sunshine streamed through the painted windows. As the ceremony was being completed a cloud must have passed from the sun, for its beams darted through the stained windows, and revealed the bride and bridegroom in a tinted halo of radiance. After the ceremony the Queen affectionately embraced her son and daughter-in-law, whose united processions were formed and left the chapel whilst Mendelssohn’s _Wedding March_ pealed forth from the organ and the cannon thundered in the Long Walk. Her Majesty interchanged salutations with her relatives, after which her own procession departed, and the regal pageant was suddenly dissolved. After the signing of the register, which took place in the Green drawing-room, the bride and bridegroom were conducted to the State drawing-room, where the Royal guests had assembled, and where the usual congratulations were exchanged. In the evening a grand State banquet was given in St. George’s Hall, at which the health of the bride and bridegroom and other toasts were honoured, Mr. John Brown, her Majesty’s Scottish gillie, standing behind the Queen and giving, as her toastmaster, the toast of the newly-wedded pair. Immediately after the toast of the Queen--the last of the list--had been honoured, two of the Royal pipers entered and marched twice round the tables playing Scottish airs, to the astonishment of some of the guests, who had never heard such music before. Then the Queen rose and left the hall, and the other guests quitted the scene. The Duke and Duchess of Albany drove from the Castle, amidst a shower of slippers and rice, to Claremont.

Unusual interest was taken in this wedding, partly on account of the splendour of the ceremony, and partly because it was understood that the Duke of Albany had won a bride admirably suited to be the companion of his refined and studious life. As he seemed destined to form a link between the Court and Culture, so it was hoped that the Duchess might become

(_From the Picture by Sir J. D. Linton, P.R.I., by Permission of the Glasgow Art Union._)]

the social head of a growing school ambitious of showing the world that the lives of women of rank, need not necessarily be absorbed by frivolity and philanthropy.

After the marriage of Prince Leopold the Queen visited the East End to open Epping Forest, which had been saved from further enclosure by the efforts of the Corporation of London. On the 4th of December her Majesty also visited in State the Royal Courts of Justice.

(_From a Photograph by Frith and Co., Reigate._)]

The death-roll of the year was a heavy one. On the 19th of April the death of Charles Darwin robbed not only England but Europe of a singularly original, painstaking, and conscientious scientific investigator. No man of his stamp has so profoundly affected the thought of the Victorian age or surveyed so wide a field of nature, in such a fair, patient, and humble spirit. His keenness of observation was only equalled by his wonderful fertility of resource. The caution with which he felt his way to just inductions, the unerring instinct with which his eye detected, amidst the maze of bewildering phenomena, the true path that led him to the secrets he sought to discover, and the masculine sagacity with which he reconciled, under broad generalisations, facts seemingly irreconcilable, confer immortality on the great work of his life. That work was his demonstration of the extraordinary effect produced on every living thing by the pressure of the conditions under which it lives--conditions which help or hinder its existence or its reproduction. The organisms which are so formed that they most easily meet the strain of these conditions survive, and their offspring bend to the same destiny. In other words, those organisms that inherit peculiarities of form and structure and stamina that best fit them to survive in the struggle for life, live. Those that do not inherit these advantages die. Such was the Darwinian hypothesis of Evolution, or the doctrine of Survival of the Fittest, and it gave to Science an impetus not less revolutionary and far-reaching than that which it received from the Baconian system.

A trusted and valued friend and servant of the Queen passed away on the 3rd of December, when Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, died after a long and painful illness. Though he was not a man of brilliant parts, or commanding intellect, he was the only Primate who, since the House of Brunswick ruled England, had left a distinct mark on the Anglican Church. He was in truth the only Primate, since the days of Tillotson, who had a definite policy, and a will strong enough to carry it out. Tait’s policy was to make the Church of England popular with the governing class of his day--that is to say, with the intelligent and respectable _bourgeoisie_. So long as they supported the Church it could, in his opinion, defy disestablishment; and it is but fair to say that he secured for it their support. He never alarmed the average Englishman by intellectuality, or irritated the middle classes by any obtrusive display of culture. He was careful not to offend them by indecorous versatility. They were never frightened by flashing wit, or bewildered by scholastic sophistry. He was faithful and zealous in the discharge of his pastoral duties, generous and tolerant to opponents, eager for what he called “comprehension,” slow in the pursuit of heresy. In every relation of life he was the incarnation of common sense and propriety. The Queen placed such unbounded confidence in his judgment that it was generally supposed Dr. Tait virtually nominated his successor. At all events, it was well known that Dr. Benson, Bishop of Truro, who succeeded to the Primacy, was the candidate specially favoured by the Sovereign, and that he was, of all the younger prelates, the one whom Dr. Tait most desired to see reigning in his stead.

The death of Garibaldi on June 2, and of M. Gambetta on December 31, profoundly moved the English people. Garibaldi’s life of heroic adventure, unselfish patriotism, and disinterested devotion to the cause of liberty, had endeared him to the masses. M. Gambetta’s amazing energy in endeavouring to lift France out of the mire of defeat in 1870 had won for him the admiration of the world. His tempestuous eloquence gave him an almost magical power over the French democracy, a power which he wielded for no sordid personal aims. If latterly his policy seemed to revive the restless aggressive spirit of his countrymen, it was admitted that he sought nothing save the glory of France. And yet for Europe it may be conceded that the death of Gambetta was not a mishap. Had he lived it would have been hard to have avoided a collision between France and England in Egypt. He encouraged those who, in Paris and St. Petersburg, had for many years been intriguing for a Russo-French alliance against Germany.[182] His death and that of Garibaldi were followed by Signor Mancini’s disclosure to the Italian Senate, of the adhesion of Italy to the Austro-German Alliance, and the formation of the Triple League of Peace.[183]