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ENGLAND'S PROGRESS 
 
 1793-1921 
 
 B. W. ARNOLD, Jr., A.M., Ph.D. 
 
 Professor of History Randolph-Macon Woman's College 
 
 BOSTON 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
Copyright, 1922, by Richard G. Badger 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company, New York, U. S. A. 
 
 DEC .18 72 
 
 ©C1A692445 
 
To 
 MY WIFE 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This brief survey of England's Progress during the 
 past century is based on secondary sources. A list of 
 the books used is given at the end of the compilation, 
 and indebtedness to their authors is hereby acknowledged. 
 References are given at the close of each chapter. The 
 hope is entertained that the reading of this sketch may 
 lead some at least to look in the larger volumes for fuller 
 light on the subjects treated here. 
 
 B. W. Arnold, Jr. 
 Lynchburg, Va. 
 June 8, 1922. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Eighteenth Century England .... 9 
 
 II. England and the French Revolution, 1793- 
 
 1815 22 
 
 III. Era of Reaction and Repression, 181 5-1 821 33 
 
 IV. Strengthening Liberalism and Parliamen- 
 
 tary Reform, 1821-1832 49 
 
 V. Progressive Legislation, 1 833-1 845 ... 64 
 
 VI. Foreign Policy under Palmerston ... 85 
 
 VII. The Ministry of Russell, 1 865-1 866 . . 97 
 
 VIII. The Derby-Disraeli Ministry, 1866- 1868 . 104 
 
 IX. The First Ministry of Gladstone, 1 868-1874 115 
 
 X. Disraeli's Second Ministry, 1874-1880 . . 136 
 
 XL Gladstone's Second Ministry, i 880-1 885 . 145 
 
 XII. Salisbury's First Ministry, 1 885-1 886, and 
 Gladstone's Third Ministry, February- 
 July, 1886 161 
 
 XIII. Salisbury's Second Ministry, 1 886-1 892, and 
 
 Gladstone's Fourth Ministry, 1 892-1 894 167 
 
 XIV. The Ministries of Rosebery (i 894-1 895), 
 
 Salisbury (1895-1902) and Balfour (1902- 
 
 1905) 182 
 
 5 
 
6 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 XV. The Ministries of Campbell-Bannerman 
 
 (1906-1908) AND OF ASQUITH UP TO 1914 . 20O 
 
 XVI. Causes of the World War , 224 
 
 XVII. England's Entrance into and Share in the 
 Great War. Asquith, 1914-1916. Lloyd 
 George, 1916-1921 236 
 
 XVIII. Legislative By-Products of the War and 
 
 Recent Tendencies 254 
 
 Bibliography 265 
 
 Index 267 
 
ENGLAND'S PROGRESS 
 
ENGLAND'S PROGRESS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND 
 
 Students of this period, though differing in their esti- 
 mate of the age as a whole, some making most of its 
 brighter, others of its darker features, still are well 
 agreed in their interpretations of several phases of its 
 life. 
 
 The century was certainly marked by a display of 
 strong intellectual vigor. The Age of Anne, 1702-17 14, 
 has been called the Augustan age of English literature. 1 
 Pope, Swift, Addison and Defoe knew how to make their 
 pens useful to the politicians who had patronage to dis- 
 tribute. The Government in Anne's time, as in the time 
 of the Caesars, took pride in lavishing lucrative ap- 
 pointments and honors upon men of letters. In the 
 "Spectator," the "Tattler," the "Guardian," and the 
 "Craftsman" may be recognized the earlier forms of the 
 modern magazine, newspaper and political pamphlet. 
 There appeared in this century the famous essayist, 
 Samuel Johnson; the play-writers Goldsmith, Sheridan, 
 Foote, and Howe; the novelists Henry Fielding, Smol- 
 lett, Samuel Richardson, Fanny Burney, and Maria Edge- 
 worth; the poets Edward Young and James Thomson, 
 the author of "Rule Britannia"; the noted lyricist and 
 
 9 
 
io England's Progress 
 
 satirist, Robert Burns; the hymn-writers Watts, Wesley, 
 Fletcher and Toplady; the moral and political philoso- 
 phers Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler, Locke, Paley, Jer- 
 emy Bentham and Blackstone; the classical scholar 
 Richard Bentley; the scientists John Ray, the zoologist, 
 Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, Joseph Black, 
 the chemist of quantitative analysis fame, and Edmund 
 Halley who first calculated the comet's orbit; the actors 
 Garrick, Macklin, and Kemble; the economists Adam 
 Smith, Tucker, and Malthus; the historians David 
 Hume and Gibbons; the architects William Chambers, 
 Wyatt, and Robert Taylor; the genius William Hogarth, 
 whose engravings and paintings enable one to see the 
 London life of his day; the painters of historical pic- 
 tures West, Barry, and Copley; the famous portrait 
 and landscape painters Reynolds, Gainsborough, Rom- 
 ney, Wilson and Barrett; the inventors Kay who devised 
 the flying-shuttle, Hargreaves the "Spinning Jenny," 
 Arkwright the "spinning frame," Crompton the "spin- 
 ning mule" which combined the principles of former 
 machines, Cartwright the power loom, James Watt the 
 steam-engine, and Josiah Wedgwood, who devised a new 
 superior earthenware well suited for busts, medallions, 
 and cameos, as well as for pottery. In the latter part 
 of the century the English theatre was encouraged and 
 elevated, the Encyclopaedia Britannica completed, cir- 
 culating libraries first established, book-clubs formed 
 among the more fashionable classes, and a children's 
 literature produced. 
 
 'Tis true that during the reigns of George I and 
 George II, 17 14-1760, and especially under Robert Wal- 
 pole's administration which covers most of this period, 
 "knights of the pen" were not favored by the Govern- 
 
Eighteenth Century England n 
 
 ment so much as in the reign of Anne; and since the read- 
 ing public was not large, owing in part to the fact that 
 books as yet were costly, authors did not prosper. But 
 nevertheless, writers multiplied — minor bards, pam- 
 phleteers, and reviewers. They prepared sermons for 
 lazy and incompetent parsons; 2 they translated and an- 
 notated classical works for bookdealers; they wrote pre- 
 faces, prologues, dedications for books, computed in- 
 dexes and almanacs, and contributed poems, advertise- 
 ments, and puffs to the papers. The literary output was 
 plentiful, though much of it was inferior in quality, many 
 of the novels of the circulating libraries being mere trash 
 full of maudlin sentimentality and of sexual improprie- 
 ties, revolting to a sound moral sense. 
 
 The age was militant and combative in spirit, full of 
 action. Throughout well nigh the entire period the 
 English naval or military forces were engaged in war- 
 fare with some foreign power. The public purse was 
 being constantly drained for military enterprises, need- 
 less or wise; reports of brilliant victories and glorious 
 actions by land or sea were frequent, warming the na- 
 tion's blood and exalting martial pride; wars and rumors 
 of wars filled the public mind. In 1703 the English 
 army under Marlborough with Austria's aid was at- 
 tempting to wrest the Spanish dominions from Philip. 
 In 1704 the French and Bavarians were beaten by Marl- 
 borough at Blenheim, and in the same year Gibraltar was 
 captured, and the city of Barcelona in Spain taken. 
 "Marlborough defeated in 1706 Villeroi at Ramil- 
 lies in Belgium, in 1708 Marshall Vendome at Oude- 
 narde on the Scheldt, and in 1709 Villars at Malplaquet 
 in Flanders." 3 In 17 18 and again in 1739 England was 
 at war with Spain. In 1742 the nation became involved in 
 
12 England* s Progress 
 
 the War of the Austrian Succession, and in 1743 at Det- 
 tingen defeated the French and Bavarians. In 1756 was 
 commenced the seven-year struggle, in which England 
 won Canada from the French, and laid the foundation 
 of the British Empire in India. In 1757 Robert Clive 
 recaptured Calcutta and won the battle of Plassey. In 
 1 76 1 Sir Eyre Coote destroyed the French power in 
 India by capturing Pondicherry, and in Quiberon Bay 
 was gained an important victory over the French navy. 
 In 1762 England was victorious in a war with Spain. 
 From 1776 to 1782 England was at war with the Ameri- 
 can colonies. From 1790 to 1792 there were conflicts 
 in Hindustan, and in 1799 was terminated the war in the 
 Carnatic. In 1794 the English took from the French 
 Toulon, Corsica and several of the West India Islands. 
 In 1798 Admiral Nelson destroyed the French fleet in 
 Aboukir Bay and checked Napoleon who was bent upon 
 gaining Egypt and winning India. 
 
 England had frequently to meet attempts at invasion 
 during this century. In 17 15 the Stuart heir to the 
 throne made a futile attempt to gain the crown, and a 
 quarter of a century later the Young Pretender made an 
 abortive effort. A Spanish fleet bent upon the invasion 
 of England was defeated in 1797. Rumors of formid- 
 able invasions by France were frequent; in 1756, 1759, 
 1779, 1782, 1783, 1796 and 1798. With military en- 
 gagements so frequent, enemies so numerous, and dan- 
 gers so imminent it is not surprising to find that martial 
 zeal and the fighting spirit were strongly developed in 
 the nation as a whole. 
 
 The practice of duelling, "the reigning curse of the 
 age," grew in part out of this high-strung combative 
 spirit. In the latter part of the century, 1 760-1 800, 
 
Eighteenth Century England 13 
 
 were recorded for England alone fifty-three duels. The 
 Right Hon. Wm. Pitt, the Earl of Lonsdale, Lord 
 Townshend, the famous John Wilkes and Lord Byron 
 were leading public men who fought in duels. 
 
 Sociability, pleasure-seeking and conviviality were char- 
 acteristic features of the life of the 18th century. It 
 was computed that in London alone even in the earlier 
 years of the eighteenth century there were about two 
 thousand coffee-houses, and in their frequenters was 
 represented every class, business and profession known 
 to the country. The coffee-house was a long room, par- 
 titioned off into rows and rows of boxes, separated by a 
 central aisle, which were filled day and night with guests 
 of different sorts and conditions, sipping a cup of coffee 
 or tea, reading the journals and periodicals, writing let- 
 ters and above all else discussing politics. Clubs were 
 numberless, and of every conceivable nature and pur- 
 pose, ranging from Sir Joshua Reynolds' Literary Club, 
 where men like Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke met 
 for serious discussion of subjects in science, art, and 
 literature, to the fraternities for amusement and ban- 
 queting, such as "The Nonsense Club" and the "No Pay 
 No Liquor Club." Excessive drinking and reckless 
 gambling 4 were widely prevalent. Persons of both 
 sexes and of all ages from fifteen to eighty had the vicious 
 habit, some parties assembling to spend whole nights in 
 games of chance; and among the rich and high-born the 
 stakes were high. Charles Fox lost at cards 12,000 
 pounds one night, and 12,000 more the next afternoon; 
 a lady lost one night "3,000 guineas at loo." The state 
 patronized lotteries in order to raise revenue for the 
 crown; and thus had some share in infecting the nation 
 with the spirit of reckless speculation and stock-jobbery. 
 
14 England's Progress 
 
 The collapse of the notorious South Sea Company of 
 1720, that had secured from the government a charter 
 for exclusive privileges for trading with the Spanish 
 American possessions in return for relieving the state 
 of certain big debts, was a national calamity inflicting 
 heavy losses on both the government and the people. 
 The company was typical of many another get-rich-quick 
 concern founded on unsound business and financial prin- 
 ciples whose shares of stock promoters were selling in 
 Exchange Alley to the gullible public crazed with the 
 fever of speculation. To drink heavily seems to have 
 been good form, the amount of intoxicating liquors one 
 could hold and still "keep his legs" being regarded as a 
 rude test of manliness. 5 The royal princes, the nobility, 
 the members of Parliament, the gentry, and the ladies 
 of fashion worshipped Bacchus to the tune of three to 
 six bottles at a sitting, and the professional, business and 
 laboring classes were not far behind in their devoted 
 libations. Copious and constant were the streams of 
 champagne, rum, wine, beer, ale, gin and many another 
 intoxicant pouring in tavern, inn and public-house. In 
 1752 the Bishop of Gloucester wrote "Those accursed 
 spirituous liquors which, to the shame of our Govern- 
 ment, are so easily to be had, and in such quantities 
 drunk, have changed the very nature of our people. And 
 they will, if continued to be drunk, destroy the very race 
 of the people themselves." 6 In 1750 the average con- 
 sumption per head was six times what it is today. 
 
 The drinking habit must account in a degree for the 
 coarse, violent and brutal manners of the period. The 
 age lacked refinement. The profanity of the men of 
 fashion, the oaths of the gentler sex, the obscenity of 
 the popular novels, the immodesty of the theatrical per- 
 
Eighteenth Century England 15 
 
 formances, the stupid practical jokes played, the vul- 
 garity of general conversation, all attest the rudeness of 
 the times. The treatment of criminals and the char- 
 acter of the amusements and pastimes of the common 
 people, such as bull-fights, bear-baiting, cock-fights, and 
 encounters in the prize ring between women as well as 
 men, bear like testimony. 
 
 The treatment of criminals was extremely inhumane. 
 The worst offenders were sometimes pressed to death 
 with heavy weights, or were quartered, strangled or 
 burnt. The "hanging matches" were public spectacles 
 drawing great crowds who made holiday out of the occa- 
 sion. And the hangings were frequent. To pick a 
 pocket of even a few pennies, to steal from a dwelling 
 house a handful of shillings, to steal a sheep, or to take 
 cloth from a bleaching ground, were capital offenses. 
 When Robert Peel in the next century undertook the 
 reform of the criminal code he found that there were 
 223 offenses — many of quite minor turpitude — declared 
 to be felonies punishable with death. To become in- 
 volved in debt or to fall behind in payment of rent was 
 often punished by imprisonment and to go to jail was to 
 run the risk of being starved, or bitten by rats in some 
 fetid dungeon or of catching some loathsome, contagious 
 disease, such as smallpox or jail-fever. The fearful con- 
 ditions of the English jails were revealed to the world 
 by John Howard. 7 From the time he was appointed 
 High Sheriff of Bedford in 1773 until his death in 1790 
 he devoted his life to the one subject, prison reform. The 
 abuses he found were numerous: no regular allowance of 
 food or of bedding, no sewers, no fireplaces, no infir- 
 maries, no proper ventilation, no sufficient supply of water 
 for drinking or washing. He computed that every year 
 
1 6 England's Progress 
 
 jail-fever carried away more people than the gallows. 
 The prisons were not only hotbeds of disease but also 
 schools of vice ; for in them no discrimination was made 
 on account of age, sex, or character but all alike, men 
 and women, boys and girls, first offenders and old hard- 
 ened criminals, debtors and felons were crowded to- 
 gether, a condition resulting in general and thorough 
 contamination. In some places the jails belonged to 
 private individuals, who would extort what they could 
 from prisoners and the prisoners' friends. In country 
 jails which were not strongly built heavy chains, iron 
 collars with spikes and heavy iron bars were sometimes 
 used to secure the inmates. Such was the case in 1768 
 in the jail of Ely which belonged to the bishop. In the 
 out-of-the-way districts several relics of barbarism lin- 
 gered, such as the pruning-knife for cutting off a culprit's 
 ears, a kind of scissors for slitting his nostrils, an "iron 
 for searing the wounds," the "tumbril" and the "brank" 
 or "gossip's bridle." The "ducking-stool" and the pil- 
 lory were employed as means of correction, and to the 
 whipping post were sent women as well as men offenders. 
 In 1 7 16 was the last judicial execution for witchcraft 
 in England but fifteen years later there was a case of try- 
 ing a witch by the mediaeval method of water ordeal. 
 Lunacy was considered and punished as crime. The pris- 
 oner at the bar often suffered injustice by reason of the 
 facts that the laws defining crimes and penalties were 
 most inconsistent and confusing; and that too much dis- 
 cretion and power in determining punishment lay with 
 the justices who as a class were woefully ignorant of the 
 body of the law and whose decisions were sometimes 
 determined by bribes. 
 
 An evil of the later years of the century was the un- 
 
Eighteenth Century England 1 7 
 
 restricted employment of children in factories and mines. 
 The children in the workhouses and in the charitable 
 institutions were hired out to the managers of the fac- 
 tories and were worked from 12 to 16 hours a day. 
 Many thousands of small boys and girls were put under 
 heartless masters whose sole purpose was to make money 
 and who drove them in their work to the utmost limit 
 of endurance. Falling to sleep at their work from over- 
 fatigue, the children were often caught in the machinery 
 and maimed for life. Destitute and dissolute parents 
 were ready for small sums of money to enslave for years 
 their offspring. The physical and moral injuries attend- 
 ing such a system of labor must have at all times been 
 patent enough to any thoughtful observer, but the cen- 
 tury closed before the fate of the children of the poor 
 touched the heart of the nation. The establishment of 
 the public schools in which they may be found to-day 
 belongs to the nineteenth century. 
 
 Another class of human beings for whose "welfare no 
 man cared" were the thousands of negro slaves, man- 
 acled and packed away in the close holds of vessels, being 
 carried to the Spanish, French, and English colonists. 
 From 1676 to 1776 it has been computed that about 
 three millions of Africans were shipped to America, and 
 that a quarter of a million more perished on the voyage 
 over. The English slave trade had begun as early as 
 1562 when John Hawkins carried 300 negroes from 
 Sierra Leone to Hispaniola. 8 The nefarious traffic 
 was defended partly on the ground that the negroes 
 would be better off in America than in Africa, that they 
 were exchanging savagery for civilization, heathenism 
 for Christianity. What supported the trade so long 
 was the enormous profits yielded. To the conservative 
 
1 8 England's Progress 
 
 and practical mind of the eighteenth century a branch 
 of commerce so lucrative and so long established ap- 
 peared as a Messing pure and simple, an indispensable 
 support of the British navy. 
 
 The age was materialistic and uninformed with the 
 spirit of idealism. Reforms and innovations were feared, 
 the sentiment "What is is right" prolonging the days of 
 many an abuse. The political world was notoriously 
 corrupt. It was a time of factions, cliques, and intense 
 partisanship when tierce jealousies were rite and con- 
 tests were tilled with violence and acrimony. Numerous 
 sinecures and lavish patronage were bestowed for ad- 
 vancing party interests and bribing at elections was uni- 
 versally practiced. George III maintained a corruption 
 fund of many thousand pounds with which to buy the 
 borough seats in Parliament. Carousing, street-fighting, 
 breaking of heads, burning of polling-stations, and 
 smashing windows were not unusual features of a hotly 
 contested election. 
 
 Among the aristocracy, cynicism, selfishness, expedi- 
 ency and skepticism ruled, while in all orders laxity of 
 morals and disregard of religious principles prominently 
 appeared. In high society conjugal infidelity and dis- 
 soluteness were openly countenanced. In the royal fam- 
 ily were several conspicuous scandals, and among the 
 parliamentary leaders were some who practiced open 
 concubinage. The life of the church was decadent: it 
 lacked faith and gave no message of compelling power. 
 Sermons were cold, formal, literary disquisitions want- 
 ing in heart, fervor, and prophetic fire. Enthusiasm was 
 purposely avoided as dangerous and wrong. One min- 
 ister exhorts against "over-shooting ourselves even in 
 the pursuits of virtues. Whether zeal or moderation be 
 
Eighteenth Century England 19 
 
 the point we aim at, let us keep fire out of one and frost 
 out of the other." Miss Wedgewood says, "Those 
 words are the motto of the Church of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury.' 9 The Methodist and Evangelical movements, 
 with their earnest proclamation of the necessity of con- 
 version, of justification by faith, and of taking the Bible 
 as the rule of life, came not until in the later years of 
 the century and as a reaction against the earlier low 
 state of religion and morals. 
 
 In the Anglican Church of the eighteenth century the 
 political views held and one's party or personal con- 
 nections rather than piety or fitness of character for 
 office usually determined the appointments to the more 
 important ecclesiastical dignities. The bishops often con- 
 verted their offices into sinecures not residing in their 
 dioceses and resting content with occasional hurried visi- 
 tations, and the administration at appointed times of the 
 rites of confirmation and ordination. Since many pa- 
 rochial endowments and the salaries yielded were small, 
 there arose too the evil of holding several benefices by 
 one and the same incumbent. The "tenure of a bishopric 
 was not considered incompatible with the tenure of a 
 deanery, a canonry, or a prebendal stall," 10 the church 
 dignitary drawing the incomes from several holdings, 
 though having most of the work done by some under- 
 paid subordinate. 
 
 The ignorance of the masses in this age appears in 
 their credulity and superstition. They believed in div- 
 ination, astrology, ghosts, the "royal touch" for heal- 
 ing and in the use of surgery and charms. Life was nar- 
 row and provincial, lacking in intellectual intercourse, 
 travel and exchange from district to district. The roads 
 in winter were horrible. Unpaved, insecure from attacks 
 
20 England's Progress 
 
 of highwaymen, and at times impassable in places they 
 prohibited much intercommunication. The farmers, 
 humble cottagers, artisans and laborers spent their years, 
 as was the wont of their fathers before them, in agri- 
 cultural toil or specific trades, their visiting confined 
 mainly to the church and ale-house. And the travels of 
 the country squires, except for the few who got into 
 Parliament, were usually limited to attendance on elec- 
 tions and courts at the county seat. The reading public 
 in the rural sections was confined to the squirearchy who 
 took newspapers. For the great majority of the coun- 
 try folk the peddlers and wayfarers were the news 
 bringers. The lack of general education is attested by 
 the fact that out of "12,000 parishes there were 3500 
 without the vestige of a school." Even in the early 
 years of the next century London had as many as 120,- 
 000 illiterate children, and "in Manchester and Salford 
 nearly 10,000 marriages were recorded in which neither 
 party could sign their names." "England and Wales," 
 says Mathieson, "were unquestionably the least and worst 
 educated countries in Protestant Europe." ll 
 
 Yet notwithstanding the darker features of its life, 
 England during the century made several notable strides 
 forward. It instituted the Cabinet, and introduced party 
 government. It established the new Hanoverian line of 
 rulers, demonstrating that kings rule by parliamentary 
 and national support, not by divine right. 12 It became 
 mistress of the sea and won empire in India. In the dis- 
 covery of Australia was found a land that proved ere 
 long the seat of a great federation of states. It effected 
 a just union with Scotland. It experienced the industrial 
 revolution, agriculture yielding primacy to manufacture 
 and commerce. It was victorious over France both in 
 
Eighteenth Century England 21 
 
 Europe and America, though losing at Yorktown to the 
 colonists assisted by the French fleet. In the John 
 Wilkes' struggle it made notable advances in liberty, — the 
 rights of freely publishing parliamentary debates, of con- 
 stituents to name their representatives in the House of 
 Commons, and of security against general search war- 
 rants all being established. In the realm of religion 
 it witnessed the zeal of the Anglicans for church building 
 in Anne's time; the activity of the Evangelicals later 
 in founding charity schools and missionary societies; 
 the noble work of Robert Raikes in instituting the Sun- 
 day School movement; and the rise and expansion of 
 Methodism. In the writings of John Locke, Joseph 
 Priestley, and Richard Price, and in the pronouncements 
 of Chatham and Fox, it learned ideas and principles that 
 heralded later constitutional and parliamentary reform, 
 — reform not to be had, however, until England got past 
 her fears of revolutionary France and Jacobinism. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Sydney: England and the English in the Eighteenth Cen- 
 
 tury, Vol. 2, p. 113. 
 
 2. Sydney: Vol. 2, p. 117. 
 
 3. Sydney: Vol. 1, p. 327-328. 
 
 4. Sydney: Vol. 1, p. 245. 
 
 5. Lecky: Vol. 7, p. 187. 
 
 6. Sydney: Vol. 1, p. 62, 63. 
 
 7. Lecky: Vol. 7, p. 327. 
 
 8. Lecky: Vol. 2, p. 242. 
 
 9. Fitchett: Wesley and His Century, p. 144. 
 
 10. Sydney: Vol. 2, p. 332. 
 
 11. Mathieson: England in Transition (1 789-1 832). 
 
 12. Lecky: Vol. 7, p. 381. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH 
 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 1793-1815 
 
 The events of the earlier part of the French Revolu- 
 tion elicited general approval rather than alarm in Eng- 
 land. Sympathy was felt for a downtrodden people who 
 were trying to win liberty and constitutional govern- 
 ment. 1 That France, the old enemy, should be weak- 
 ened by civil discord meant too, it was thought, that 
 England, tor a time at least, need fear no war from that 
 quarter and could therefore follow with safety a peace 
 policy and lighten the people's taxes. The fall of the 
 Bastille was declared by Fox, "the greatest and best event 
 that had happened in the world." Fox was a champion 
 of the liberty-loving in revolt, and though grieved at the 
 violence and bloodshed of the French revolution he re- 
 joiced in its success. He deplored its methods but ad- 
 mired its spirit, rightly believing that its basal principles 
 were good. 2 It was natural to have sympathy and ad- 
 miration for the French democrats: for in 1789 there 
 existed in England grave social economic and constitu- 
 tional evils needing correction, just as was the case in 
 France. Hoping to effect reform, men of republican 
 views in England and the political dissenters generally 
 largely under French influence formed several revolu- 
 tionary societies. The "Friends of the People" society 
 had a membership of the highest respectability and influ- 
 ence, including many members of Parliament such as 
 
 22 
 
England and the French Revolution 23 
 
 Russell, Grey and Sheridan. The "London Correspond- 
 ence Society," first formed as a secret order, numbered 
 between 6000 and 7000 members. The "Society of Con- 
 stitutional Information" consisted of the more advanced 
 and thorough-going among educated men of radical 
 views. In many towns clubs were formed "avowedly 
 affiliated to the democratic clubs in Trance." Among 
 prominent enthusiastic admirers of the French Revolu- 
 tion were Price, Paine and Mackintosh.'' But enthusiasm 
 in England for the French Revolution did not long con- 
 tinue. As the movement progressed, exhibiting soon its 
 violent, anarchic spirit, subverting law and order, over- 
 turning throne and altar, and revealing its intention to 
 propagate its ideas in other countries, English public 
 opinion changed, and, influenced by the views of Edmund 
 Burke, became eventually heartily opposed to the revolu- 
 tion. Burke, a believer in a highly aristocratic consti- 
 tutional monarchy as the best form of government and 
 having little faith in rule by the people, was from first 
 to last bitterly hostile to the experiments of the French 
 republicans. In 1790 he published his famous essay 
 "Reflections on the French Revolution" of which 30,000 
 copies were shortly sold. Burke declared that "France 
 was setting an example of anarchy, fraud, violence and 
 atheism." 4 He predicted that the probable close of the 
 anarchy of the Revolution would be a military des- 
 potism/' Fie protested against comparing, as some were 
 doing, the English Revolution of 1688 with the French. 
 Revolution, and his advice to the English was to have 
 nothing whatever to do with the French Constitution. 
 
 The conservative views of Burke in time prevailed 
 also with the English government. The prime minister, 
 the younger Pitt, at first thinking it probable that the 
 
24 England's Progress 
 
 political turmoil of France would issue finally in estab- 
 lishing a constitutional monarchy approximating Eng- 
 land's in character, had determined to follow a neutral 
 policy and not to interfere at all with French internal 
 affairs. He was interested in domestic reforms, and 
 hoped for at least fifteen years of peace in which to 
 carry out his cherished plans of economy and retrench- 
 ment. He looked toward reducing the public debt, light- 
 ening the taxes, abolishing the slave trade and liberaliz- 
 ing the constitution. In August, 179 1, he refused to 
 join the European powers in offering concerted action 
 against France, and in the spring of 1792 he submitted 
 a budget framed entirely upon a peace basis. 
 
 But the turn of events soon forced Pitt to abandon 
 the position of non-intervention. No sooner had the Ja- 
 cobins gotten in control of Paris and succeeded in repel- 
 ling the Austrians and Prussians, than it was made clear 
 that the French would not be content with righting their 
 own institutions, but believed they had a mission to per- 
 form in righting the governments of other peoples as 
 well. On November 19, 1792, they issued a famous de- 
 cree "promising fraternity to all nations desirous of 
 liberty." Letters, pamphlets and secret agents were des- 
 patched from France into other states to stir up political 
 discontent and the spirit of revolt. As a result, in Eng- 
 land a royal proclamation was issued May 21, 1792, 
 against seditious writings, and an Alien Bill was passed 
 January 4, 1793, requiring "foreigners to state the object 
 of their visit to England, to enter their names on a reg- 
 ister, and to have passports" for moving from place to 
 place. To guard against further riots, some of which 
 had occurred that seemed to have been incited by emis- 
 saries of the Jacobins, the government in December, 
 
England and the French Revolution 25 
 
 1792, called out the militia. 6 Pitt soon realized that 
 war would come. He noted that the revolutionists were 
 issuing orders to disregard all treaty obligations, and to 
 open the navigation of the Scheldt, which treaty guar- 
 antees by France and other countries had closed, the 
 opening of which could not but bring France directly into 
 opposition both to Holland and to England; that they 
 appropriated Savoy and Nice; and that they occupied 
 Belgium. France was assuming the right of setting 
 treaties at naught, and was subverting the political sys- 
 tem of Europe. As the "shores of the low countries had 
 always been recognized as a vital part of the English de- 
 fence," 7 Pitt could not consent to their occupation by the 
 French and remonstrated.. The French then declared 
 war on England and Holland, February 1, 1793. Only 
 ten days earlier, on January 21, the execution of Louis 
 XVI had occurred and this event mightily stirred popu- 
 lar hatred and passion. 
 
 From 1793 to 18 15 warfare between England and 
 France was almost constant. After the fall of Robes- 
 pierre and the Jacobins, the National Democratic Con- 
 vention gave way, October, 1795, to the rule of the 
 Directory, an executive committee of five members, sup- 
 ported by two legislative bodies. The Directory in turn 
 gave way November 10, 1799 to the authority of Na- 
 poleon, who, supported by the army, made himself First 
 Consul and then Emperor, and was virtually dictator 
 in France until his overthrow in 18 15. Under all these 
 different governments France remained hostile to Eng- 
 land. It is true there were three attempts on the part 
 of Pitt to negotiate peace, in 1795, 1796, and in 1797, 
 but on account of France's success at arms they were 
 unavailing. The Peace of Amiens, made with Napoleon 
 
26 England's Progress 
 
 March 27, 1802, was only a truce, for during the four- 
 teen months' cessation of active hostilities both powers 
 were busy strengthening themselves for approaching con- 
 flicts. 
 
 England contended hard and long in maintaining the 
 fundamental principles of her foreign policy, all of 
 which were fiercely assailed. These principles are ( 1 ) 
 "guarding the security of the country from invasion by 
 maintaining sea-supremacy; (2) keeping the coasts of 
 the Netherlands in friendly hands"; (3) protecting her 
 colonies; (4) holding India; (5) retaining control of 
 the Meditteranean; and (6) preserving the European 
 Balance of Power by preventing France or any other 
 state from getting an overwhelming predominance on 
 the Continent. 
 
 The course pursued by the French, especially under Na- 
 poleon, was in direct opposition to all these principles. 8 
 Napoleon undertook, like Charles the Great, to subju- 
 gate all Europe. Like Alexander the Great, he sought 
 to establish an Eastern Empire in India. He sought 
 to invade England, to rob her of her supremacy in the 
 Meditteranean, to destroy her commerce, to take her 
 colonies, and so to weaken her that she should not be 
 able to thwart his plans for universal empire. But 
 thwart him England did : by hard fought battles on land 
 and sea, by building great coalitions of allies against 
 him, and by furnishing millions of pounds of subsidies 
 for supporting the armies of the allies. In five different 
 years, 1793, 1798, 1805, 1813, 1814-15, France found 
 herself opposed by a new coalition of allies, England 
 being the chief builder and factor in all of them. Great 
 Britain lacked a well-equipped army at the first, and con- 
 sequently the plan she pursued against France was to 
 
England and the French Revolution 27 
 
 assist the allies with her navy and with money. Eng- 
 land's maritime power could inflict great injury on the 
 enemy by destroying her commerce, blockading her ports, 
 and taking her colonies. But to bring France, a Con- 
 tinental power, to terms land battles had to be fought, 
 and since the powers of Europe would fight her if Eng- 
 land would help to pay their troops, England determined 
 to furnish the funds and put their armies in the field. The 
 subsidizing was on a tremendous scale. In the nine years 
 succeeding 1792 England's public debt was raised 336,- 
 000,000 pounds for subsidizing and military purposes. 
 In 1793 the Island Kingdom was furnishing subsidies 
 to Russia, Sardinia, Spain, Naples, Prussia, Austria, Por- 
 tugal and Tuscany. 
 
 England was able to raise the money because British 
 credit was good; because King, Lords, Commons and 
 people were united in purpose; because the security and 
 strength of their government insured social order and 
 encouraged business; because there was steady growth 
 in trade, manufactures, and commerce; because markets 
 for British products were multiplied, safe trade with 
 which was possible on account of the ubiquitous English 
 navy. The mutinies in the navy in 1797 at Spithead and 
 at the Nore, due to low wages, to an unfair system of 
 pensions and promotion, to desire for a larger share of 
 prize money, and to dissatisfaction with certain officers, 
 were handled firmly, yet with sympathy for the sailors. 
 Since the trouble resulted in the removal of abuses which 
 had cursed the naval service for years, an increasing loy- 
 alty was produced. Later in this same year, 1797, when 
 a Dutch fleet was gathered across the channel near Cam- 
 perdown to assist France in a contemplated invasion of 
 England, Holland having been led into alliance with* 
 
28 England's Progress 
 
 France, these same crews, so lately in rebellion, showed 
 their patriotism, by rushing on the Dutch fleet with their 
 old time valour and gaining a grand victory. 9 
 
 England reaped big gains from the alliance of Hol- 
 land with France, for that made the Dutch colonial pos- 
 session open to attack. Great Britain had soon taken 
 their rich settlements in Ceylon, and on the Malabar 
 coast: the Cape; and the Moluccas. While England 
 suffered an occasional loss in the West Indies and was 
 troubled here and in other portions of her colonial em- 
 pire by insurrections stirred up by French agents, on the 
 whole England's colonies remained faithful, as did India. 
 The rebellion in Ireland in 1798, largely incited by the 
 French, was successfully put down and resulted in a 
 corporate union between Great Britain and Ireland. 
 Later victories against France were due in no small part 
 to the many brave Irishmen in the ranks of the army. 
 While England experienced a total loss of commerce 
 with France, Holland and the Belgian Netherlands, this 
 injury was more than counterbalanced by an increase of 
 commerce with Germany, Russia and the United States. 
 British money was what held together the enemies of 
 France when offering a united opposition; and without 
 those subsidies, the French army might have conquered 
 all Europe. 
 
 Napoleon's hostility to England was unceasing. 
 Three notable, though futile, attempts he made to de- 
 stroy her. First, when a general under the Directory in 
 1798 he sought to ruin Great Britain by blocking her way 
 to India through Egypt and Turkey. He landed an 
 army in Egypt and had no difficulty in getting control 
 of this country, but his progress toward India was 
 blocked at Acre, in Syria, by Sydney Smith where Bona- 
 
England and the French Revolution 29 
 
 parte lost nearly 5000 men, and his navy was destroyed 
 by Nelson in Aboukir Bay. His second plan was to in- 
 vade England, which he attempted in 1805. He gath- 
 ered an army of 150,000 men at Boulogne, which forces 
 he hoped to get across the English Channel by means of 
 the combined fleets of Spain and France and the use of 
 a number of specially built transports. His plan was to 
 have the scattered ships of the French fleet that were 
 shut up in various harbors of France break the blockade, 
 and with the Spanish fleet make for the West Indies with 
 the hope of having the British fleet under Nelson fol- 
 low them. They were then to turn back, escaping Net- 
 son, make a dash for the English channel, and hold it 
 long enough to allow Napoleon's transports to get their 
 troops across to the island. Part of the plan worked 
 well, for Nelson pursued to the Indies and the French 
 fleet under Admiral Villeneuve eluded him, getting back 
 safely to the Spanish coast. But there was delay at 
 Cadiz for two months by Villeneuve and when he did 
 move out Nelson, who had meantime learned of the 
 manoeuvre, was back, met him in Trafalgar Bay and de- 
 stroyed his entire fleet. Nelson lost his life in the bat- 
 tle, but the victory forever defeated Napoleon's plan of 
 invading England. 
 
 His third scheme was to humble England by destroy- 
 ing her commerce and industry. In 1806 when his alli- 
 ance with Russia and his victories over neighboring 
 states had given him virtual control of almost the entire 
 sea-board of Europe, he instituted his so-called "Conti- 
 nental System" by issuing decrees from Berlin "declaring 
 the British Isles in a state of blockade, forbidding all 
 commerce between Great Britain and her colonies and 
 the territories occupied by France or her allies, and 
 
30 England's Progress 
 
 ordering the confiscation of all British merchandise 
 wherever found." 10 Of course Great Britain retaliated, 
 "declaring the ports of France and her allies in a state 
 of blockade and neutral vessels trading between them law- 
 ful prize." 
 
 In this commercial struggle, a sort of duel by starva- 
 tion, England, in possessing a colonial trade of consid- 
 erable importance, had the advantage over France. The 
 loyalty of her people too would bear sacrifice in order to 
 gain victory over the hated Napoleon. In conquered 
 Europe, popular sentiment was against the Emperor. 
 The peoples of the different states under his rule could 
 see no good or right in this plan for personal, selfish 
 aggrandizement at the cost of so much suffering to them- 
 selves; and as business slackened, ports closed, factories 
 shut down, and commerce ceased, bringing unemploy- 
 ment, poverty, distress and hunger the people began to 
 curse the Berlin Decrees and their author. Here we 
 see the beginning of Napoleon's ruin. Attempting to 
 force Portugal against her will to join the Continental 
 System, he overran the state, captured Lisbon, and then 
 with basest ingratitude for former assistance rendered, 
 deposed the Spanish monarch, Charles IV, and made his 
 own brother Joseph king. Both of these acts thoroughly 
 incensed the people of the whole Spanish Peninsula, and 
 led to their furnishing in 1808 a safe entrance for the 
 English army of 18,000 troops under Wellington. In 
 1 8 10 Russia, encouraged by England, withdrew from Na- 
 poleon's Continental System. In 18 12 came the disas- 
 trous Moscow Campaign when the French Emperor on 
 retreating left on the frozen plains of Russia an army 
 of half a million men. Seeing his power now was broken, 
 all his foes took heart, and in 18 13 the Fourth Great 
 
England and the French Revolution 31 
 
 Coalition of Prussia, Austria, Sweden, England and Rus- 
 sia was formed, whose combined armies overwhelmed 
 him at Leipsic in a three days' battle, October 16-18. 
 In this battle Napoleon lost in killed and wounded 50,000 
 out of 250,000 of his command. This defeat caused his 
 first abdication and his retirement to Elba. On his es- 
 caping from Elba, dispossessing the restored Louis 
 XVIII and seizing again imperial power in Paris, the 
 Fifth Great Coalition of Great Britain, Russia, Austria 
 and Prussia was formed, 18 14, and their united strength 
 achieved his final overthrow at the Battle of Waterloo 
 June 18, 18 15. In this famous battle, the British under 
 command of the Duke of Wellington lost 13,000, the 
 Prussians under Bliicher 7,000, and Napoleon lost, if 
 prisoners be included, 37,000 men, over half his army, 
 and also the whole of his artillery, ammunition, baggage 
 wagons, and military train. The Emperor fled to the 
 capital, abdicated a second time, and then surrendered 
 himself to the commander of a British war-ship the Bel- 
 lerophon. He was exiled to St. Helena, an isolated 
 rocky island belonging to Great Britain off the coast of 
 Africa, where he remained until his death in 1821. 
 
 After Napoleon's first abdication, the Allies had re- 
 stored Louis XVIII to the throne of France, made a 
 peace treaty with him, May 30, 18 14, and had assem- 
 bled a great international congress at Vienna for deter- 
 mining a general peace settlement for all Europe. There 
 were diplomats and princes from many states, but what 
 was done at the conference was decided by the Five 
 Great Powers, Russia, Prussia, Austria, England and 
 France. The congress continued from September, 18 14, 
 to June, 18 1 5, their final agreement, the Treaty of 
 Vienna, being signed June 9, 18 15, only a few days be- 
 
32 England's Progress 
 
 fore the Battle of Waterloo. After this battle, a sec- 
 ond treaty was made with France, November 20, 18 15. 
 The settlement required that the nation should pay a 
 war indemnity of 28,000,000 pounds, that she should 
 support an army of occupation for five years, and that 
 the Bourbon Louis XVIII should occupy the throne. 
 His territories were reduced to the old lines existing be- 
 fore war opened in 1792. England received not incon- 
 siderable gains. While Java was returned to the Dutch, 
 she kept Heligoland, Tobago, St. Lucia, Ceylon, and 
 Cape Colony in South Africa, and her position in the 
 Mediterranean was strengthened by the retention of 
 Malta. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 i. Bright: History of England, Vol. 1689-1837, p. 1160. 
 
 2. Harrison: International Policy of Great Britain, p. 59. 
 
 3. Lecky: Vol. 6, p. 433. 
 
 4. Hunt and Poole: Political History of England, Vol. 10, 
 
 p. 308. 
 
 5. Lecky: Vol. 6, p. 403. 
 
 6. Bright: Vol. 1689-1839, P- 1168. 
 
 7. Burrows: History of Foreign Policy of Great Britain, p. 170. 
 
 8. Burrows: History of Foreign Policy of Great Britain, p. 
 
 171-174. 
 
 9. Hunt and Poole: Vol. 10, p. 378. 
 iOi Terry: History of England, p. 965. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ERA OF REACTION AND REPRESSION 
 
 1815-1821 
 
 The Allied Powers at the Congress of Vienna in 18 15 
 in their settlement of the peace of Europe after the fall 
 of Napoleon made one capital mistake, namely — not tak- 
 ing into account when changing the boundaries and gov- 
 ernments of states the sentiments, predilections, and 
 wills of the people affected by such alterations. It was 
 for this reason mainly that so much of the work of that 
 Congress did not prove permanent. According to the de- 
 crees of the Congress France was ever to be a monarchy 
 under the absolute rule of the Bourbon dynasty; Teu- 
 tonic Holland and French Belgium were to form a single 
 kingdom under the rule of the House of Orange; Lom- 
 bardy and Venetia were given to Austria, and Austria 
 was to remain the ruling power in Germany and Italy; 
 as to the Italian states, Genoa was handed over to Sar- 
 dinia, the central ecclesiastical provinces were restored 
 to the rule of the Papacy, and Naples and Sicily were 
 placed again under the former Bourbon masters. But 
 all this has since been changed. France proclaimed in 
 1870 the Third Republic which still exists; Holland and 
 Belgium separated in 1830 and each set up an indepen- 
 dent kingdom for itself. Lombardy with the assistance of 
 French arms in 1859 and Venetia with the military aid 
 of Prussia and Sardinia in 1866 threw off the Austrian 
 yoke; the present Italian Kingdom first proclaimed in 
 
 33 
 
34 England's Progress 
 
 1 86 1 had incorporated by 1870 every state in the whole 
 peninsula; and since 1856 Prussia, not Austria, has been 
 the leader in German affairs. The wishes of the popula- 
 tions concerned had not been consulted and the arrange- 
 ments did not last. The European statesmen and princes 
 at Vienna labored under the delusion also that no good 
 could come out of the French Revolution. England was 
 a chief actor in the Congress of Vienna, her representa- 
 tive there being at the first Lord Castlereagh and later 
 the Duke of Wellington, both staunch Tories. That 
 England should be regarded as the champion of liberty 
 and popular rights is justified by much of her history, 
 but at this Congress the nation did not appear in that 
 light. The government was eager to conclude as soon 
 as possible a peace settlement which would be generally 
 satisfactory to the other Great Powers and which would 
 therefore probably last for some years, and in seeking 
 this she accorded sanction and support to several illiberal 
 and unpatriotic schemes. The giving of two-fifths of 
 the Kingdom of Saxony to Prussia, the establishment 
 of Austrian rule in Italy, the acquisition of Poland by 
 Russia and Prussia, the cutting off of Norway from Den- 
 mark and joining it to Sweden, and other like acts of 
 the Congress in which the rights of nationalities and peo- 
 ples were sacrificed to the selfish interests of particular 
 governments, were all acquiesced in by England. 
 
 The responsibility for her share in these reactionary 
 and repressive measures of the Congress rests, though, 
 on her aristocracy and Tory ministry mainly for in 18 15 
 the English government was by no means representative 
 of the whole nation. George IV as Regent during the 
 mental incapacity of his father (181 1-1 820) , and as King 
 ( 1820-1 830) , continued in power the Tories. His Prime 
 
Era of Reaction and Repression 35 
 
 Minister was Lord Liverpool, a most bitter opponent of 
 constitutional reform. The Lord Chancellor was Lord 
 Eldon, who devoted his great intellectual powers to ob- 
 structing all changes in the law that tended to equalize 
 the political status of different classes; the Home Secre- 
 tary was Lord Sidmouth, an unprogressive statesman of 
 mediocre talent who had been a highly favored minister 
 of the illiberal King George III ; the Secretary of For- 
 eign Affairs was Lord Castlereagh than whom no one 
 was more hated by the leading Liberals of the day. The 
 Toryism of such a ministry was less intelligent, less lib- 
 eral, and more violent than the Toryism of the govern- 
 ment in the earlier years of the century, well represented 
 in William Pitt who was kept from undertaking needed 
 political reforms by the necessity of carrying on foreign 
 wars; or than the later Toryism of men like George 
 Canning, Sir Robert Peel and Huskisson who came to 
 influence about 1822, and who championed the ideas of 
 social and economic reforms. From 1815 to 1820 a 
 Toryism that identified reform with revolution, and that 
 enacted legislation of a deliberately reactionary form 
 ruled supreme. This force it was, and not a freely ex- 
 pressed national sentiment, that was responsible for the 
 role played by England at the Congress of Vienna. 
 
 As to domestic affairs, the three decades, 1800— 1830, 
 of Tory government have been termed the "period of 
 legislative quiescence" 1 by which designation is meant 
 that in this period politically no material improvement or 
 amendment was made in the fundamental law of the 
 land. In general the character of the laws passed in 
 these years was either reactionary or paternal; the meas- 
 ures did not contemplate any increase of political power 
 for the people, but on the contrary sought to weaken 
 
36 England's Progress 
 
 their influence in governmental affairs through attempt- 
 ing either to allay popular discontent by humanitarian 
 treatment or to suppress by force their means of politi- 
 cal agitation. To be sure the body of fundamental law 
 needed revision, the legal abuses being evident, numerous 
 and grave ; but the party in control felt that prudence nec- 
 essitated leaving everything just as it stood rather than 
 to venture any innovation sought by those whose loudest 
 clamour was for parliamentary reform in the direction 
 of democracy. They were heartily supported in this 
 position by the titled nobility, the higher-placed clergy- 
 man, and the opulent aristocrat who held a very opti- 
 mistic view of the structure of the English government 
 and felt that Englishmen ought to be satisfied with the 
 fact that they enjoyed greater liberties than the subjects 
 of the neighboring European states. They passed in 
 this era several measures of a humane character, forbid- 
 ding the "slave trade in 1806, abolishing the pillory in 
 1 8 16, prohibiting the whipping of women in 1820, pen- 
 alizing cruelty to animals in 1822, prohibiting the use 
 of spring guns in 1827," 2 and placing regulations on the 
 employment of labor in factories in the health and moral 
 acts of 1802, 1819, 1825, 1829 and 1831; but while 
 they exhibited in the enactment of these laws a desire 
 to lessen as far as they could suffering and pain for the 
 unfortunate, they showed at the same time their readiness 
 to restrict popular rights and privileges by passing such 
 reactionary laws as the Combination Act of 1800 and 
 the Six Acts of 18 19. 
 
 The Combination Act reveals clearly enough that the 
 interest of employers of labor were better represented 
 in Parliament in 1800 than the interest of working men. 
 It was a severe statute, aimed especially at the suppres- 
 
Era of Reaction and Repression 37 
 
 sion of strikes, trade unions, and every sort of combina- 
 tion among workmen which sought to advance wages or 
 to better conditions of employment. Taken along with 
 the law of conspiracy already on the statute books, this 
 act virtually meant that any "artisan who organized a 
 strike or joined a trade union was a criminal and liable 
 on conviction to imprisonment; the strike was a crime, 
 the trade union was an unlawful association." 3 The 
 theory of the law was that laborers and artisans must 
 be contented with the customary rate of wages, and never 
 use the pressure of numbers, nor organize offering com- 
 mon resistance, nor do anything in fact together with the 
 purpose of forcing their employers to raise their pay. 
 Combinations were objectionable to the government too 
 because they suggested the revolutionary clubs of 
 France. It was the dread of sedition and rebellion that 
 inspired also the passing of the Six Acts of 1819. These 
 measures aimed among other things to prevent political 
 gatherings and mass meetings among the common folk; 
 to stop through severe penalties so-called seditious writ- 
 ings and organizations; to curtail the right of public 
 discussion; to forbid, unless under supervision of the 
 civil authorities, the training of persons to the use of 
 arms and to the practice of military evolutions; and to 
 check the circulation of certain cheap newspapers by the 
 imposition of stamp duties. The Act for preventing the 
 assembling of seditious gatherings, so restricted the right 
 of holding public meetings for the lower classes as to 
 make the right valueless. It allowed "meetings of coun- 
 ties called by the lord lieutenant or sheriff; meetings for 
 corporate towns called by the mayor . . . ; and meet- 
 ings called by five or more justices of the peace," but with 
 these exceptions, it forbade all meetings for the consid- 
 
38 England's Progress 
 
 eration of grievances in Church and State, or for the 
 purpose of preparing petitions, except in the parishes (or 
 townships, where parishes are divided into townships) 
 where the individuals usually reside. 4 No one except an 
 actual resident could attend such a meeting, and pre- 
 vious notice of such meetings had to be given by seven 
 inhabitants to a neighboring magistrate, who possessed 
 the discretionary power of forbidding it altogether if he 
 liked. No person bearing weapons or banners could 
 attend such a meeting. Thus the lower classes could be 
 kept strictly to the small parish meetings, and from 
 these assemblies all itinerant orators, being strangers, 
 would be excluded; and since at the time, 18 19, many 
 wealthy and popular towns, such as Manchester, Bir- 
 mingham and Sheffield were not incorporated and also 
 had no representative in Parliament, they were denied 
 the only means they had of calling attention to their 
 grievances and needs. This unfair measure was limited, 
 however, in its duration to five years. 
 
 To explain the passage of these laws it is necessary 
 to give a somewhat detailed account of the general 
 economic conditions and dissatisfied state of national 
 feeling in England in the period immediately succeeding 
 the close of the Napoleonic wars, and to show the forms 
 of expressions which that discontent was taking. After 
 peace was made in 18 15 there followed in England a 
 time of unexampled distress notwithstanding the na- 
 tional expectation that the cessation of hostilities would 
 inaugurate an era of remarkable prosperity. The causes 
 for this unusual state of wide-spread economic depres- 
 sion and consequent unhappiness are not far to seek. 
 The enormous expenditures of the government for war 
 supplies of every sort for so many years had furnished 
 
Era of Reaction and Repression 39 
 
 a new, profitable, but artificial market for the products 
 of farm and factory. The government was not only 
 spending millions of borrowed money on its own army 
 necessities, but was lending also immense sums to her 
 allies for provisions and military stores. During the 
 last year of the war the government through taxation 
 or loans had raised 170,000,000 pounds. Her national 
 debt had amounted to the prodigious sum of 861,039,049 
 pounds. 5 These lavish outlays of money produced an 
 abnormal inflation of prices, which led many manufac- 
 turers and undertakers engaged in agricultural trade to 
 extend their operations on borrowed capital and at heavy 
 initial expenses, hoping to realize big profits on their 
 ventures by selling in a rising market. Considerable 
 impetus and advantage were given British industries and 
 commerce by the suspension of manufactures in parts of 
 the Continent where hostile armies came, and by the sus- 
 pension of commerce caused by Napoleon's restrictive 
 trade regulation which forbade free commercial inter- 
 course and access to natural markets. England's territory 
 was free of battles and hostile armies, and therefore 
 the peaceful life of plough and loom proceeded without 
 interruption. So long as the war lasted all hands willing 
 to work in some industry could find employment. In 
 spite of the prohibitions of the Continental System, a 
 well organized contraband trade flourished. British 
 shipowners were prospering and were fast getting con- 
 trol of the carrying trade of the world. English exports 
 in 1792 were valued at 27,000,000 pounds; but in 18 15 
 at 58,000,000 pounds. 
 
 Agriculture yielded enormous profits for some years. 
 So high was the general level of prices for wheat in par- 
 ticular that many men of the adventurous, speculative, 
 
40 England's Progress 
 
 and spendthrift type entered on farming, substituting 
 the careful provident, small cultivators. They brought 
 under the plough much poor land formerly felt to be un- 
 profitable to till. Exercising poor judgment they took 
 crop after crop from the same piece of ground to the 
 great exhaustion of the soil, and abandoned in the sole 
 interest of producing grain many advantageous and 
 necessary forms of husbandry. The deficiency of the 
 harvests in some years and the constant demands of war 
 greatly heightened the price of corn (that is wheat and 
 breadstuffs). During the closing years of the conflict 
 the price of wheat was at times double what it was in 
 the opening year. The inflation was due to exceptional 
 demand, to temporary scarcity and monopoly. With the 
 return to natural conditions at the close of the war this 
 inflation largely disappeared, the price of wheat for three 
 years varying generally from 60 s. to 80 s. instead of 
 from 90 s. to 120 s. and the lowered market meant heavy 
 losses for those who had projected their enterprises on 
 the faith of the continuance of high prices. The land 
 owners, as a class, were, however, protected considerably 
 by the corn laws. Pressed by the powerful landed in- 
 terests, and accepting their doctrines that agriculture was 
 the true basis of national strength, and that from a mili- 
 tary point of view it was not safe to allow the country 
 to depend on its neighbors for food-supply, Parliament 
 passed a law in 18 15 that practically prohibited the im- 
 portation of foreign grain until the price of wheat in 
 England had reached at least 80 shillings a quarter. 
 After this law had been in effect for some time, the "slid- 
 ing scale" acts were passed which established a system 
 of varying tariffs, so that when the price of home grown 
 wheat rose above a definite figure the duty on imported 
 
Era of Reaction and Repression 41 
 
 wheat was to sink proportionally. But the corn laws 
 were vicious in principle, and did more harm than good. 
 Whatever benefit the wheat growers received was given 
 at the expense of the consumers of the whole nation. 
 In order to put more money in the corn grower's pocket 
 the government, in excluding by law foreign grain, was 
 making bread scarce and dear for all the rest of the 
 people. Money-making for the landowners after this 
 method meant for the poor hunger and suffering. The 
 measures, too, made prices more variable: and the more 
 frequent and uncertain the fluctuation in prices, the more 
 rife was speculation, and the greater were the risks taken 
 and the losses incurred. These violent fluctuations 
 brought disaster to many farmers. Overwhelmed with 
 debt they had to suspend or limit their operations which 
 involved discharging their laborers who were added to 
 the increasing class of the needy unemployed. 
 
 The commercial classes experienced likewise serious 
 disappointments and financial losses. Not a few enter- 
 prising commercial men, believing that the continental 
 demand for English exports when peace came would 
 be twice as great as it was in war, and desiring to share 
 in the prospective profits, transferred money from legiti- 
 mate and lucrative trade to the purchase of colonial 
 produce for exportation. They overlooked the fact that 
 the continent had been greatly impoverished by the long 
 war and that as a consequence it did not have the means 
 to obtain the English goods. France, Russia, Spain and 
 Germany had experienced such a drain on their resources 
 by the final struggles of 18 14-15 that they lacked money 
 for necessities. The export trade suffered a reduction 
 of 16%, and the import trade nearly 20%, which de- 
 cline involved numerous bankruptcies, and the wholesale 
 dismissal of working people. The Continent's revival 
 
42 England's Progress 
 
 of domestic industries lessened the foreign demand also 
 for British manufactured goods; and the iron and textile 
 industries of England especially suffered when the gov- 
 ernment discontinued its purchases for military purposes. 
 The price of iron fell from 20 to 10 pounds. 
 
 The condition of the lower working classes was most 
 distressful. Even in times of general business pros- 
 perity they had not received a fair subsistence wage. 
 Many of them had to have assistance out of the parish 
 poor rates. A vicious system of poor relief made it pos- 
 sible for employers of laborers to pay low wages. The 
 work people were being thrown out of employment also 
 from the substitution of machine labor for hand labor 
 in the factories. The ranks of the unemployed were 
 swollen too by great accessions of the disbanded soldiers. 
 In the years between 18 14 and 18 16 there were 500,000, 
 and in the years 1816-17-19 there were 250,000 men 
 released from the army and navy. With the close of 
 the war there came too a severe winter and a deficient 
 harvest, which made foodstuffs very dear. In the year 
 18 17 Parliament authorized an expenditure of 750,000 
 pounds for employing the laboring poor on public works. 
 
 The general discontent and misery of the people gave 
 rise soon to popular disturbances of anarchic, violent 
 character, such as bread-riots, the smashing of machinery, 
 and the burning of the hay-ricks. Here and there fac- 
 tories and stores were broken into, and occasionally 
 night attacks were made on the houses of magistrates 
 and landlords. High rents, which had advanced 70%, 
 was a chief cause of the popular hatred for the latter 
 class. The landlords with their families were compelled 
 in some cases to abandon their houses for a time in order 
 to save themselves from the fury of angry, hungry mobs. 
 
Era of Reaction and Repression 43 
 
 In June, 18 17, the carriage of the unpopular dissolute 
 Prince Regent was attacked. Now and then a town 
 fell into the hands of a mob and the tumult could only be 
 suppressed by calling out the military forces. In the cities 
 appeared frequent threatening assemblies of artisans 
 and agricultural laborers who were clamouring aloud 
 for employment and for reduction in prices of meat and 
 grain. In the cries of these people was not heard at the 
 first a demand for political reform: in pain and want 
 they blindly called aloud for material relief with no 
 care or plan as to how the aid should come. But before 
 long the noise and tumult of the ignorant masses had 
 aroused the political interest of a few intelligent, thought- 
 ful, public-spirited men above them who better under- 
 stood what conditions were wrong in the nation's life, 
 and who soon gave to the people's "plaint a distinct tone 
 and a definite purpose." To William Cobbett, must 
 be given chief credit of having given a political turn 
 to the discontent and unhappiness of the people. Cob- 
 bett was not a man of the college-bred type, who had 
 had his head crammed with various theories of political 
 science and constitutional systems; but he did know life. 
 He was a man of the people, had been a soldier in the 
 army serving in Canada, had been a bookseller in New 
 York and Philadelphia, and had traveled widely. He 
 acquired an excellent mastery of the English language 
 and achieved success as an editor. He established a 
 periodical called "The Weekly Political Register" in 
 which he argued that most of the evils that Englishmen 
 then complained of were to be attributed directly and 
 almost altogether to a bad system of government. The 
 price of his paper was reduced from a shilling to two 
 pence in 18 16, and at once it became an authority with 
 the laboring classes. It circulated over the whole coun- 
 
44 England's Progress 
 
 try and was read in shop and cottage. His cure for 
 the evils of the time was simply to reform Parliament. 
 He wanted universal suffrage, annual parliaments, elec- 
 tion by ballot, and only a single legislative chamber. 
 Some of his demands were far ahead of the times, but 
 his work was the beginning of a great agitation which 
 did not end until the great Reform Bill of 1832 was 
 passed. Other friends and promoters of reform were 
 Lord Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, Samuel Whit- 
 bread, Lord Cochrane, Sir Samuel Romilly, Charles Earl 
 Grey, and Lord John Russell. Some of these men had 
 been urging in the House of Commons Parliamentary 
 reform before the long war opened in 1783; but now 
 after that war had closed, having lasted over two de- 
 cades, they had still to wait a period almost long enough 
 for an infant in arms to grow to the stature of a man 
 before that most reasonable demand was gained. 
 
 To the Tory ministers, Liverpool, Castlereagh and 
 Eldon the demands possible to be made on England after 
 the peace settlement of Vienna, just as the dangers to 
 which the country had been exposed when conducting the 
 war, furnished good reason for refusing to introduce 
 more of popular power in the government. In their 
 opinion, the position of Great Britain as a sort of pro- 
 tector of that settlement had to be sustained. Times 
 were perilous and it was deemed possible that at any 
 moment the nation might be called upon to act with 
 all her force in concluding some contest between Con- 
 tinental powers. They feared too popular discontent at 
 home. Therefore their plans at the first for continuing 
 the war taxes and keeping on foot an army of 150,000 
 men in time of peace. But the Whigs and Radicals in- 
 terpreted the Tory policy in conjunction with the treaties 
 
Era of Reaction and Repression 45 
 
 entered into at the Congress of Vienna to mean that 
 the government intended to raise England into a great 
 military power, and for the bad purpose too of interfering 
 on the continent to guarantee sovereigns there against 
 the triumph of democracy in their territories: so they 
 began vigorous opposition, and in 1816 raised the cry: 
 "Peace, Retrenchment and Reform." By flooding Par- 
 liament with petitions that exhibited the universal hos- 
 tility of the country to the proposed continuance of cer- 
 tain income and property taxes first laid on for war 
 purposes, they succeeded in defeating in Parliament the 
 Tory ministry on that score. The ministers were led 
 also to cut down the army and navy to the lowest limit 
 consistent with national security. In the interest of eco- 
 nomy, they announced in 18 17 that the Regent resigned 
 to the public one-fifth of his whole receipts, amounting to 
 50,000 pounds a year, and they passed several acts the 
 object of which was to get rid of many useless offices. 
 
 But while the Tories yielded somewhat to the Whigs' 
 demands for peace and retrenchment in that they cut 
 down the war taxes and made considerable reduction 
 in governmental expenses, they were for some years dead 
 set against all proposals for political reforms. The min- 
 istry seemed to think that every society and gathering of 
 the people where reform was discussed had hidden within 
 it a treacherous conspiracy against the government. Just 
 after the carriage of the Prince Regent was attacked 
 in 18 17 two secret committees, one from the House of 
 Commons and one from the House of Lords, were ap- 
 pointed to inquire into the general state of the political 
 unrest. The House Committee declared that revolu- 
 tionary clubs were organized all over the country. The 
 Lords Committee likewise reported the existence of a 
 
46 England's Progress 
 
 great net-work of societies, which pretended to be work- 
 ing for Parliamentary reform but were really militant 
 in purpose and were doing their best "to infect the minds 
 of all classes with the spirit of disaffection and a con- 
 tempt of law, religion, and morality." 6 As a matter of 
 fact, the organizations were merely peaceful debating so- 
 cieties or literary clubs where politics and reform were 
 discussed. The innocent marching in procession and 
 the occasional drilling of awkward labourers to keep step 
 and in line when assembling in the big out-of-door mass 
 meetings was the military feature inspiring so much fear. 
 The strikes, riots and even occasional feeble attacks on 
 governmental authority were only impressive manifesta- 
 tions of general destitution and distress; yet they were 
 considered by the ministry to be convincing signs of 
 a Jacobin conspiracy to overthrow the monarchy. 
 
 It is true that the discovered Cato Street affair, Feb. 
 23, 1820, whose chief instigator was a violent radical, 
 Arthur Thistlewood, was a genuine, murderous plot to 
 assassinate the whole ministry while at a Cabinet dinner, 
 and Thistlewood and four of his accomplices justly paid 
 for it with their lives; but the Spa Fields gathering of 
 Dec. 2, 18 1 6, the Derby insurrection of June 10, 18 17, 
 and the Bonnymuir rising in Scotland, April 3, 1820, con- 
 nected with each of which was rioting and the fatal 
 shooting of somebody, were expressions, neither surpris- 
 ing nor unnatural of misguided ignorant classes suffer- 
 ing acute economic distress. The appeal to the insurgent 
 was: 
 
 "No bloody soldier must he dread; 
 He must turn out and fight for bread." 7 
 
 In dealing with these uprisings the government em- 
 
Era of Reaction and Repression 47 
 
 ployed but one method, coercion, believing transgressors 
 guilty of "levying war against the king." Its illiberal, 
 unsympathetic attitude and policy were well revealed in 
 the Peterloo incident. 
 
 On Monday, Aug. 16, 18 19, there assembled on 
 St. Peter's Field, Manchester, a peaceful mass-meeting, 
 numbering in all, men, women and children, some 80,000, 
 to hear speeches on political subjects, to discuss and adopt 
 a plan for Parliamentary reform, and to choose a "legisla- 
 torial representative." The leaders of the affair pub- 
 licly admonished the meeting that no insult to anyone 
 was to be permitted, and that no excuse whatever was 
 to be given to the authorities for any attempted disturb- 
 ance of the proceedings. But the local magistrates who 
 had announced such a gathering to be illegal determined 
 to disperse it. They had sworn in special constables and 
 called into service several companies of infantry and six 
 troops of cavalrymen. Just as Mr. Hunt, the orator 
 of the occasion, was on the point of formally opening the 
 proceedings the chief constable supported by some sol- 
 diers pressed into the densely packed crowd seeking to 
 wedge his way through to the speaker's platform, to 
 serve on Mr. Hunt the warrant of arrest. But so closely 
 jammed together were the people, the constable's little 
 party could make poor headway, and soon became entirely 
 surrounded, held fast by the crowd. They were not 
 attacked nor were they in any danger, but some of the 
 magistrates outside thought so, and losing their heads 
 gave the order to the officer in command of the Hussars 
 to disperse the crowd. At once the cavalry charged into 
 the defenceless multitude with the result that five persons 
 were killed outright; thirty more with serious wounds 
 had to be carried to the hospitals, and another half hun- 
 
48 England's Progress 
 
 dred were badly injured. This massacre of innocent peo- 
 ple was generally deplored all over the country; but, 
 strange to say, the central authorities endorsed the course 
 of the magistrates and induced the Prince Regent to 
 write them a letter of approval. The chief lesson drawn 
 by the ministry from the lamentable occurrence was the 
 necessity of strengthening the laws for suppression of 
 sedition. They called an autumnal session of Parliament, 
 and got it to pass by big majorities the repressive "Six 
 Acts" mentioned above. These enactments mark the cul- 
 mination and end of an era of harsh repressive legisla- 
 tion. For five years, 18 15—1820, the lower classes had 
 suffered much, and in their misery had caused the Gov- 
 ernment no little trouble. In retaliation the Govern- 
 ment had a number of the leaders of the populace exe- 
 cuted for high treason; it suspended the Habeas Corpus 
 Act, allowing arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of sus- 
 pected revolutionists; it forbade the possession of fire- 
 arms; 8 it jealously guarded against the least extension 
 of the suffrage; it shackled the press; it limited the right 
 of public assembly. These reactionary and repressive 
 methods kept the country quieted for several years, but 
 the peace was one of submission, not of satisfaction. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 i. Dicey: Law and Opinion in England, p. 62. 
 
 2. Dicey: p. 106. 
 
 3. Dicey: p. 98. 
 
 4. Walpole: History of England Since 1815, Vol. I, p. 434. 
 
 5. Hunt and Poole: Vol. 11, p. 171. 
 
 6. Bright: Vol. 1689-1837, p. 1354. 
 
 7. Walpole: Vol. 1, p. 366. 
 
 8. Walpole: Vol. 1, p. 442. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 STRENGTHENING LIBERALISM AND PAR- 
 LIAMENT REFORM, 1821-1832 
 
 From 1 82 1 on the government's policy is less restric- 
 tive and illiberal. Better harvests, cheaper bread, regu- 
 lar employment, and the improved state of the manu- 
 facturing interests made a more contented people. There 
 was less popular disturbance and therefore less necessity 
 for repressive laws. The French Revolution was reced- 
 ing farther into the past, and there was less of Jacobin 
 dread among the authorities. The Peterloo massacre 
 eventually resulted in greater liberty for the people. In 
 the trial of Hunt and some of his associates, who were 
 arrested for their part in the Peterloo meeting, the at- 
 tempt was made to prove them guilty of treason, which 
 seemed possible according to the law as interpreted by 
 Lord Eldon, the Chancellor. He held that the charge of 
 treason could be maintained in that "numbers constituted 
 force, and force terror, and terror illegality." But the 
 judges who tried Hunt and his associates the year after 
 their offenses were committed took a different view. The 
 men were convicted of misdemeanors only, though Hunt 
 himself was imprisoned for two years. The court's view 
 made it certain that unless there is a special provision or 
 law to the contrary, public political meetings are legal, 
 however great the numbers of peaceful men who assem- 
 ble. 1 The year 1821 marks the death or resignation of 
 some of the older Tories, like Lord Sidmouth and Castle- 
 
 49 
 
50 England's Progress 
 
 reagh, and the rise to power of younger men of the Tory 
 party such as Canning, Huskisson and Sir Robert Peel 
 who were less averse to innovations than their predeces- 
 sors in office. Under their leadership, slight domestic 
 reforms were achieved and a radical change made in 
 England's foreign policy. Huskisson, a believer in free 
 trade, was successful in having some of the restrictive 
 navigation laws removed in 1823, and in reducing the 
 import duties in 1824 on raw materials for manufacture, 
 such as wool and silk, to the benefit of both commerce 
 and the textile interests. Peel began the reform of the 
 criminal code by cutting down the long list of crimes 
 punishable by death, reducing the list eventually to two 
 offenses, viz., murder and treason. He reformed the 
 police system of London, did good service in 18 19 in 
 restoring the currency, and drew up the bills that com- 
 pelled the Bank after 1823 to pay on demand all notes 
 in legal coin. Canning led England a step forward in 
 her foreign policy. 
 
 For seven years, 1 8 15—1822, the members of the Holy 
 Alliance, the Czar of Russia, Emperor of Austria, and 
 King of Prussia with their reactionary Bourbon confed- 
 erates of France and Spain and Naples were dominating 
 Europe in the interest of absolutism. Whenever the 
 Liberals of any state would force a constitution from 
 their king or depose him, this confederacy would hold 
 a congress, decide on military intervention in the state, 
 and send out as their agent troops to suppress the popular 
 uprising. They had supported Austria in suppressing 
 such a movement in Naples, and backed France in a like 
 interference in Spain. Castlereagh had acquiesced in 
 these acts of the Holy Alliance, but Canning as Foreign 
 Secretary announced a new policy. He threw his influ- 
 
Strengthening Liberalism 51 
 
 ence against the Alliance. He withstood French inter- 
 vention in Portugal; he supported the independence of 
 the revolted Spanish colonies in America; and he did 
 all he could to prevent Turkey from crushing Greece. 
 
 In April, 1827, Canning reached the Premiership, only 
 to occupy that high office for a few months. In attending 
 the burial of the Duke of York which occurred on a bleak, 
 cold day in the preceding January, he contracted an ill- 
 ness that proved fatal. He died on the eighth of the 
 following August. His successor in office was Lord 
 Goderich, whose inefficient ministry lasted seven months 
 only. In January 25, 1828, the Duke of Wellington was 
 made Prime Minister, who held office until Nov. 22, 
 1830. As head of the Government the Iron Duke pur- 
 sued a very unusual course. Instead of resigning his 
 office when defeated on an important measure in the 
 House of Commons, he would change his opinions to 
 suit the House, remain in office, and graciously yield the 
 enactment of the bill desired by the Opposition. He 
 made his first retreat in connection with the repeal of the 
 Test and Corporation Acts. These acts required pro- 
 fession of conformity to the Church of England for all 
 members of corporations and holders of offices under the 
 Crown. Wellington did not favor their abolition; but 
 when he saw that a motion of the Whigs for a committee 
 to consider the Acts commanded in the House of Com- 
 mons a majority of forty-four votes, he and Peel, the 
 Home Secretary, with other leaders of the Government, 
 accepted this vote as practically decisive; and having 
 declared themselves satisfied to substitute for the sacra- 
 mental test in the laws, the requirement that a man when 
 inducted into office must affirm that he would do nothing 
 to injure the Church, supported the passage of the bill. 2 
 
52 England's Progress 
 
 The repeal was vigorously contested in the House of 
 Lords on the ground that the acts formed an important 
 "defensive outwork of the union of Church and State," 
 and the bill was not passed until its affirmation require- 
 ment was altered by adding the phrase "upon the true 
 faith of a Christian," which clause continued the exclu- 
 sion of Jews from holding office. 
 
 The Prime Minister's next retreat was in connection 
 with the matter of Catholic Emancipation. Since 1800 
 when Pitt had secured the Act of Union of Great Britain 
 and Ireland, the Catholics of Ireland had been agitating 
 for full political equality with Protestants, which Pitt 
 would have given them at first had it not been for the 
 obstinate refusal of the King, George III. Led by Daniel 
 O'Connell they organized in 1823 the Catholic Associa- 
 tion which soon had enrolled in its membership nearly 
 all the Catholics of the country. The Association got 
 up immense mass-meetings, and impressive demonstra- 
 tions of every sort; sent orators over Ireland advocat- 
 ing the Catholic cause; organized parochial clubs; drilled 
 the people in processional marching and united the senti- 
 ment and strength of the nation against the illiberal 
 policy of the English government. The Association col- 
 lected from its members an impost, called the "Catholic 
 Rent," and in 1828 showed its political power by electing 
 with an overwhelming majority O'Connell as their repre- 
 sentative for the county of Clare. The sole barrier that 
 would exclude O'Connell from Parliament was the oath 
 he would have to take on entrance, since the election was 
 altogether legal. The Association, under O'Connell's 
 leading, at once planned the election of Catholic repre- 
 sentatives for all the counties of Ireland, and began pledg- 
 ing its members to resist Wellington's ministry until 
 
Strengthening Liberalism 53 
 
 Catholic emancipation was granted, and to fight also for 
 a reform of Parliament and for full religious and civil 
 liberty. The Association planned to influence the gov- 
 ernment by the use of moral means only; but still it 
 seemed to have within it the possibility of mustering on 
 its side if need be the physical strength of the whole 
 Catholic population of Ireland. Among its supporters 
 too were numbered the Catholics of Scotland and Eng- 
 land, many of the Whigs, and some of the Tory party. 
 Until 1829 Wellington, an Anglo-Irish Protestant by 
 birth, had refused to give any consideration whatever to 
 proposals for Catholic emancipation, showing himself to 
 be in the matter as unbending an opponent as Liverpool 
 or Eldon had ever been. But in that year Wellington 
 and Peel came to the conclusion that civil war would 
 occur in Ireland unless concessions were made. The min- 
 istry announced therefore their intention to bring in a 
 bill that would place Catholics on the plane of political 
 equality with the members of the Church of England. 
 The Relief Bill introduced experienced considerable re- 
 sistance in passage. King George IV detested the con- 
 cession; the bishops and many lay peers were obstinate; 
 and a large proportion of the English population disliked 
 the proposition. But with the aid of the Whigs the min- 
 istry succeeded in its enactment. It established real po- 
 litical equality between Catholics and Protestants. The 
 Catholics of Great Britain were given the franchise; 
 Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland were given 
 entrance to Parliament; and Roman Catholics were 
 "admitted to all municipal offices, to all judicial offices, 
 except in the ecclesiastical courts, and to all political 
 offices except the offices of Regent, of Lord Lieutenant 
 of Ireland, and of Lord Chancellor in England and 
 
54 England's Progress 
 
 Ireland." 3 Not long after the passage of the Relief 
 Bill as many as fifty Irish Catholics, O'Connell among 
 them, were holding seats in Parliament. 
 
 In 1830, the year following that of the passage of 
 the Relief Bill, Parliament was dissolved, and a new 
 general election held on account of the death of the 
 sovereign George IV. The "Sailor King" William IV, 
 the only surviving brother of the former ruler, succeeded 
 to the throne. He made a good constitutional king, 
 for he believed the day was past when a ruler could "make 
 himself an effective barrier against the movement of the 
 times." 4 The reformers took heart and in the general 
 election that followed won from the old Tory party more 
 than fifty seats. In the English counties, where elections 
 were freer than in the boroughs, sixty out of eighty-two 
 members were returned by the Whigs. The election in- 
 dicated that the nation expected Parliamentary reform to 
 be undertaken, but when the subject was brought up, 
 Wellington boldly and bluntly declared that England's 
 legislative system was well nigh perfect, that he had 
 no plan to offer for reform, and that "as long as he held 
 any station in the government of the country he should 
 always feel it his duty to resist such measures when pro- 
 posed by others." 5 This frank statement of his con- 
 viction in the matter was accepted by the Whigs and re- 
 formers as a challenge, and on the next test vote the 
 ministry was defeated by a majority of 29. Wellington 
 now resigned, and the king appointed Charles Earl Grey, 
 the Whig leader, Prime Minister. 
 
 The cause of reform was strengthened at this time in 
 England by the spread of democratic movements that 
 year, 1830, in several foreign countries; especially by 
 the revolution in France that substituted the Bourbon 
 
Strengthening Liberalism 55 
 
 monarch, Charles I, for the citizen king, Louis Philippe. 
 Charles had been dethroned by the people because he 
 tried to rule arbitrarily through an ultra royalist min- 
 istry, instead of constitutionally through a fairly elected 
 representative chamber, and because in his contest with 
 the people he had the impertinence and temerity to issue 
 three intolerable ordinances; the first, suspending the 
 freedom of the periodical press: the second, ordering the 
 dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies; and the third, 
 making alterations suiting the king in the constitution 
 of the next chamber to be elected. Instead of obeying 
 the royal orders the populace revolted, and securing the 
 support of the disaffected national troops, forced the ab- 
 dication of the king. The effects of the Paris revolution 
 were felt at once all over Europe. There followed popu- 
 lar uprisings in Italy, Germany, Spain and Portugal. 
 The Belgians revolted against union with Holland, and 
 the Poles against the despotic rule of the Russian Czar 
 Nicholas I. In England it strongly influenced the gen- 
 eral election of that year. 
 
 The English reform movement had gained by this time 
 the support of many men of substance, influence and edu- 
 cation. Twelve years before the loudest and most active 
 agitation was among the lower classes, day laborers 
 and artisans; but the strength and direction of the move- 
 ment came now from higher social groups, the manufac- 
 turers, merchants, lawyers, school teachers, thrifty farm- 
 ers, and the householders of independent means. Lead- 
 ing statesmen had begun to accept the teachings of the 
 political philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, who had published 
 his sound views on the nature of government as early as 
 1776. He had declared as correct fundamental principles : 
 (1) "That the end of all government is utility, or the 
 
S& England's Progress 
 
 good of the governed"; (2) that the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and 
 legislation"; and (3) that "every person is in the main 
 and as a general rule, the best judge of his own happi- 
 ness." 6 To acknowledge these principles was to confess 
 that the British Constitution was very defective. Ben- 
 tham's disciples were numerous and influential in 1830, 
 and heartily supported the reform program. 
 
 The system of Parliamentary representation was full 
 of absurdities. Half of the members of the House of 
 Commons obtained their seats by purchase or by the 
 nomination of the proprietor of some great estate. 
 Seats in the House of Commons were bought and sold 
 openly, prices ranging from 3,000 to 30,000 pounds 
 and the king a chief purchaser. The borough Woebly 
 belonged to the Marquis of Bath, who just before an 
 election would send down his servants to occupy for a 
 few days the rickety old houses there, that they might 
 qualify as voters and return his nominees on election day. 
 The Duke of Rutland could return six members, Lord 
 Lonsdale nine, and the Duke of Norfolk eleven. A 
 county with a million of inhabitants like Yorkshire or 
 Lancashire had no more representatives than the most 
 sparsely settled county. The county of Cornwall had 
 forty-two members lavished upon it, but the newly-grown 
 populous industrial centres, like Leeds, Birmingham, and 
 Manchester, each with a population numbering from 86,- 
 000 to 133,000, and over a score of other towns with 
 populations running from ten to twenty thousand had 
 no representative at all. There were still representatives 
 given though to decayed villages that were formerly in 
 mediaeval times important seaports or market towns, 
 but that in 1830 had neither houses nor inhabitants. The 
 
Strengthening Liberalism 57 
 
 electoral power of a man varied most capriciously. Re- 
 siding in one place he might be one of twenty electors 
 sending a delegate to the House of Commons; residing 
 in another, he might be one of a hundred or a thousand 
 voters. About one out of every forty-eight persons had 
 a vote. These indefensible anomalies in the representa- 
 tive system were due to the fact that the constitution of 
 the House of Commons had experienced little change for 
 over two hundred years. 
 
 Since the calling of the "Model Parliament" by Ed- 
 ward I in 1295, the rule had been, with but a few ex- 
 ceptions, that each county and each borough should have 
 two representatives in the elected national legislative as- 
 sembly. The small and sparsely settled counties and 
 boroughs of Wales secured only one member each : Lon- 
 don got four. Since Edward's day a few insignificant 
 boroughs had lost the right of returning a representative, 
 but numerous other places, many of them unimportant 
 villages, had been created boroughs and given representa- 
 tives in the House of Commons in order to increase the 
 influence of the Crown in national legislation. One hun- 
 dred and eighty borough members were added to the 
 Commons between the coming to the throne of Henry 
 VIII in 1509 and the death of Charles II in 1685. A 
 town when first receiving representation in Parliament 
 may have been a place of considerable size and impor- 
 tance, but though in succeeding years it dwindled in popu- 
 lation until it lacked a dozen inhabitants, yet it continued 
 to possess its two members in the House of Commons. 
 A village settlement of little importance in the fourteenth 
 century, might become in the eighteenth century a vast 
 city, and still be unrepresented. There was an undue 
 and unfair excess of borough over county members in 
 
58 England** Progress 
 
 Parliament. The qualifications for voting, which had 
 remained practically unaltered for generations, needed 
 thoroughgoing revision. The county Parliamentary 
 franchise was confined to free-holders of land worth 
 forty shillings a year, but as during the eighteenth 
 century many small estates had been swallowed up 
 in the large estates, there were only a few such free- 
 holders, men owning outright pieces of land. The pros- 
 perous copy-holders, the industrious tenant-farmers and 
 lease-holders who cultivated nine-tenths of the land, and 
 the great body of hired laborers tilling the soil had 
 no votes. 7 As to the borough franchise, it exhibited ex- 
 traordinary variety from town to town, having been deter- 
 mined by the history and character of the settlement. In 
 some of the boroughs every resident freeman or every 
 householder had a vote; in others only the town council- 
 lors who represented a close corporation rilling their own 
 vacancies had votes; and between these extremes there 
 existed every conceivable intermediate system. Some 
 modifications of the franchise had occurred since the 
 accession of the Tudors but in the direction of restrict- 
 ing, not extending, the suffrage, qualifications for voting 
 being less liberal under George III (1760-1820) than 
 under Edward III (1327-1377). 
 
 "Where the suffrage was confined to burgage holds, 
 the real property of the place was acquired by wealthy 
 individuals who conferred on friends, relations, or de- 
 pendents, the right of property during the period of elec- 
 tion. If the corporation had the right of election, the 
 influence of the neighboring landed proprietor was often 
 sufficient to secure that its members, whose trade perhaps 
 depended on his good-will, should yield him practically 
 the patronage of the borough. Where the freeman 
 
Strengthening Liberalism 59 
 
 shared in the vote, the freedom of a borough was seldom 
 conferred on any individual on whose support the influ- 
 ential landowner could not depend, and if any ventured 
 upon a course of Independence, the pliant majority were 
 ready to create new freemen for the express purpose of 
 turning the election. In the open boroughs money was 
 expended in every kind of bribery." 8 The rights of 
 persons unfavorable to the man of influence were de- 
 feated sometimes by omitting to rate them to pay the 
 parish taxes. At the close of the eighteenth century there 
 were in Parliament as many as 90 members of the House 
 of Commons returned from 46 boroughs with not more 
 than 50 voters; there were 81 members practically named 
 by 40 peers; there were 150 members nominated by mem- 
 bers of the House of Lords, and as many as 350 were re- 
 turned through the influence and control of as few as 180 
 individuals. 
 
 Such were some of the injustices that Lord Grey's min- 
 istry sought to remove in their famous Reform Bill of 
 March 1, 1 83 1. Its introduction into the House of Com- 
 mons was entrusted to Lord John Russell, a noble scion 
 of a prominent Whig family, and a leader long identified 
 with the movement for Parliamentary reform. The bill 
 was thoroughgoing, the ministers being convinced that 
 nothing less than a great measure would satisfy the na- 
 tion. It proposed to abolish three chief evils: (1) nomi- 
 nation of members by patrons; (2) election of members 
 by the oligarchic town councils or close corporations; 
 (3) the costliness and corruption of elections. 9 It 
 planned a redistribution of the seats on a fairer basis, 
 taking representation away from the decayed villages and 
 bestowing it on the hitherto unrepresented, newly grown 
 prosperous towns; and it sought to simplify the voting 
 
60 England's Progress 
 
 system, to establish a uniform borough franchise, and to 
 make the franchise for both county and borough similar 
 in principle. It was not a democratic measure by any 
 means, but it proposed an important extension of the suf- 
 frage, possibly enlarging the electorate by about one 
 half a million voters. 
 
 So far-reaching was the measure in its proposals that 
 it excited at once the enthusiastic support of all friends 
 and the bitterest opposition of all enemies of reform. 
 The passage of the bill was hotly contested at every step. 
 The proposed reform was described as a "revolution 
 that will overturn all the natural influence of rank and 
 property." It was denied that representation in origin 
 was connected in its determination with the number of 
 the population or with taxation; it was claimed that the 
 rotten boroughs, and close boroughs, whose members 
 could be nominated by patrons were serviceable in bring- 
 ing young talent into Parliament, or good as refugees 
 for distinguished members who had lost support in their 
 own constituencies; it was affirmed that the proposal to 
 abolish so many seats was nothing less than robbery, "a 
 new Pride's purge." It was declared that England's 
 form of government, as it then stood, was a model of 
 perfection, and that the experience of all history had not 
 produced a better one. 
 
 So numerous were the representatives of the rotten 
 boroughs, and so resolved were they in withstanding 
 their own destruction, that the ministry found they could 
 not carry their measure without an appeal to the country 
 through a new election. In a full house the Bill on its 
 second reading passed by only one vote, 302 to 301, 
 which convinced Lord Grey that he could not carry the 
 reform through with so small a majority. He offered 
 
Strengthening Liberalism 61 
 
 to resign, but the King, William IV, would not accept 
 it, preferring to dissolve Parliament, and to give the na- 
 tion a chance to speak its mind. The new elections were 
 conducted in the midst of unparalleled popular agita- 
 tion, and resulted in returning a House in which the min- 
 isters could command a majority of 136. The Bill was 
 again introduced September, 1831, and in the same month 
 went through all three readings in the Commons, finally 
 passing with a majority of 106. Lacking in argument 
 the opposition had resorted to obstructive tactics, repeat- 
 ing over and over the same speeches, and making dilatory 
 motions. "In fourteen days Peel had spoken 48, Crocker 
 57 and Wetherell 58 times." 10 In the Upper House, 
 the Lords, tenacious of their privileges, rejected the bill, 
 and their action brought the country to the verge of civil 
 war. The newspapers were filled with indignant re- 
 monstrances; there was talk of undertaking to abolish 
 hereditary titles and ending the House of Lords; among 
 the lower classes riots broke out necessitating the calling 
 out of troops; enormous mass-meetings attended by tens 
 of thousands were being held all over the country and 
 from these and hundreds of political organizations went 
 up the cry "The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the 
 Bill." Parliament was now prorogued, but when it reas- 
 sembled in December Lord John Russell introduced again, 
 December 12, 1832, his third Reform Bill. This passed 
 the Lower House March 23, 1832, by a majority of 116. 
 In the Upper House, the Lords this time, instead of 
 rejecting the measure, planned to pass it but with serious* 
 mutilations. Whereupon Lord Grey once more resigned, 
 knowing well, however, that no Tory ministry the King 
 could appoint would be able to conduct the government 
 as affairs then stood. But William IV accepted Grey's 
 
62 England's Progress 
 
 resignation and led the Duke of Wellington to try for 
 a week, but in vain, to form a cabinet. Wellington and 
 his colleagues in the Tory party feared civil war and 
 rightly believed that the troops could not be depended 
 on to face the angry people. The Duke advised the King 
 to call back Lord Grey, which was done. But Grey, be- 
 fore he would accept office again, secured from His Ma- 
 jesty this written promise: 
 
 "The King grants permission to Earl Grey and to his 
 Chancellor, Lord Brougham, to create such a number of 
 peers as will be sufficient to insure the passing of the Re- 
 form Bill." 1X This threat ended all resistance in the 
 House of Lords. The new peers were not created, but 
 the bill became law June 4, 1832, Wellington and about 
 100 of the Lords who opposed the bill purposely absent- 
 ing themselves at its passage. 
 
 The Reform Act as finally passed wholly disfranchised 
 56 boroughs having less than 2000 inhabitants, and took 
 away one representative from each of 32 boroughs 
 having less than 4000 inhabitants. The seats thus ob- 
 tained were redistributed, of which 44 went to large 
 towns or districts of London, each place receiving two 
 members; 21 to towns of less consequence, each place 
 receiving one member; 6$ were added to the counties; 
 8 were given to Scotland and 5 to Ireland. The total 
 membership of the House remained as before 658. 
 
 As to suffrage, the act established a uniform borough 
 franchise, the right to vote being given to all 10 pound 
 householders, that is to those "who own or rent any 
 house, shop or building of an annual rental with the land 
 of 10 pounds." In the counties votes were given to copy- 
 holders and lease-holders, that is "to farmers and tenants 
 of land whose tenure was for sixty years, and of the an- 
 
Strengthening Liberalism 63 
 
 nual value of ten pounds, and to tenants-at-will holding 
 land worth fifty pounds a year." 12 Formerly only those 
 who owned land outright had the franchise. The Act 
 enfranchised the middle class, but not the artisans of 
 towns nor laborers of the counties. The passage of the 
 Reform Bill diminished the power of the landed interests 
 in government, and it established two important consti- 
 tutional principles : ( 1 ) The House of Lords cannot re- 
 sist the House of Commons, when the latter truly voices 
 the will of the nation; (2) The Sovereign of England 
 must yield to the advice of his ministers on a question of 
 vital import to the state. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. McCarthy: Modern England before the Reform Bill, p. 87. 
 
 2. Bright: History of England, Vol. 1 689-1 837, p. 1401. 
 
 3. Montague: Elements of Constitutional History of England, 
 
 p. 198. 
 
 4. McCarthy: Modern England before the Reform Bill, p. 203. 
 
 5. McCarthy: Epoch of Reform, p. 44. 
 
 6. Dicey: Law and Opinion in England, p. 145. 
 
 7. Montague: p. 205. 
 
 8. Paul: History of Reform, p. 131. 
 
 9. McCarthy: Epoch of Reform, p. 53. 
 
 10. Hazen: Europe Since 1815, p. 435. 
 
 11. Hazen: Europe Since 1815, p. 436. 
 
 12. Hazen: p. 437. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 PROGRESSIVE LEGISLATION 
 
 1833-1845 
 
 The Reform Bill of 1832 completely ousted the "bor- 
 ough-mongering Tory oligarchy" from authority and 
 gave control of the government into the hands of the 
 Whigs for several decades. Immediately preceding 
 1830, the year Grey's Whig ministry came into office, 
 the Tories had enjoyed an almost uninterrupted suprem- 
 acy for forty-six years, but during the forty-four years just 
 after 1830, they were in power not quite eight years. 
 They found it to their advantage later to change their 
 party name and began calling themselves "Conserva- 
 tives." The Whigs, later called Liberals, were given a 
 long lease of power because they were active promoters 
 of additional reforms. The changes they sought to make 
 were not, however, constitutional in character but chiefly 
 social and economic. They differed from the Radicals in 
 that they had no intention or desire to experiment with 
 democratic projects. Favorable to the Whigs also was 
 the accession of Victoria to the throne at the death of 
 her uncle William IV, June 30, 1837. The young ruler 
 had been well instructed by her teacher and adviser Lord 
 Melbourne in the Whig doctrines of limited monarchy, 
 parliamentary sovereignty and ministerial responsibility. 
 , The first notable work of the Reformed Parliament 
 was the passage of an act for the emancipation of the 
 
 64 
 
Progressive Legislation 6$ 
 
 slaves in the British colonies. The negroes, numbering 
 over 750,000, represented many millions of pounds of 
 property owned by the most respectable and politically 
 influential families of England, and through their labor 
 was maintained a lucrative market for British goods. In 
 1833 one-fifteenth part of British exports were pur- 
 chased by the West Indian Islands; in 18 14 one-sixth part 
 nearly had been taken by them. Slavery had a host of 
 defenders, and numerous and varied were their argu- 
 ments in support of the institution. They avowed that 
 the colonies with free laborers would not compete with 
 other places using slave-labor; that England had no 
 right to rob certain of her colonies of an institution which 
 formed the very basis of their strength and welfare; 
 that to abolish slavery in colonies in direct contradiction 
 to their desire as expressed in their local assemblies was 
 an unwarranted and unconstitutional interference in 
 their government; that it was unfair to the negroes who 
 were better off in bondage than in freedom, for "who," 
 it was asked, "is to feed these poor creatures if removed 
 from the protection of their masters?"; that negroes 
 would not render earnest labor except under compulsion, 
 and that if they were freed, their places could not be 
 taken by Europeans because they were unfit to toil in the 
 sweltering heat of the tropical sugar, rice or cotton-fields ; 
 that emancipation would be followed by insurrections of 
 the negroes; that the government could not justly thus 
 interfere with the sacred rights of property; that the 
 negroes on the West Indian plantations were better 
 treated than the young workers in English factories and 
 mines, and that it was right and sensible to correct labor 
 conditions at home before attempting to do so for islands 
 beyond the Atlantic Ocean; that the reports of ill-treat- 
 
66 England's Progress 
 
 ment of slaves circulated by the abolitionists were exag- 
 gerations, and that it was to the interest of slave owners 
 to care for their property, not destroy it, and that it was 
 reasonable to believe that they did so. 
 
 These arguments of the planters seem weak enough to- 
 day, but it took a half century of labor and agitation 
 on the part of the abolitionists and humanitarians to 
 overthrow the system supported by them. Prominent 
 among those who espoused the cause of the slaves were 
 Ramsey who in 1784 published a book on the cruelties 
 of the slave trade that excited wide interest; Lady Mid- 
 dleton whose influence was largely instrumental in hav- 
 ing the subject brought to the attention of Parliament; 
 William Wilberforce, a man of high birth, considerable 
 fortune, philanthropic nature, and earnest Christian faith, 
 who from 1787 to the end of his life in 1833, was active 
 both within and without Parliament in waging the anti- 
 slavery crusade; Granville Sharp, who in 1772 obtained 
 the first decision that slavery was illegal in England, and 
 under whose presidency was formed in London in 1787 
 the "Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade"; 
 Thomas Clarkson who gained a prize at Cambridge for 
 an essay on slavery, published in 1786, and who was of 
 great service in collecting valuable data for Wilberforce 
 to use in the House of Commons; Brougham, who carried 
 an act in 1 8 1 1 making it a felony to engage in the slave 
 trade which gave effectiveness to the act passed in 1807 
 under Grenville's administration that prohibited the slave 
 trade after Jan. 1, 1808, and who in 1830 when probably 
 the most powerful member in the House of Commons 
 made bold advocacy of the cause of abolition in a telling 
 oration that placed emancipation among questions of first- 
 rate importance in practical politics ; Thomas Fowell Bux- 
 
Progressive Legislation 67 
 
 ton, member of a Quaker Family, a distinguished gradu- 
 ate of Dublin University and a member of the African 
 Institution which watched over the law that abolished 
 the slave-trade, a man whose views in the matter appear 
 in his first resolution on the subject introduced, though 
 not passed, in Parliament in 1823, which declared "that 
 the state of slavery was repugnant to the principles of 
 the British Constitution and of the Christian religion, 
 and that it ought to be abolished throughout the British 
 Colonies, with as much expedition as may be found con- 
 sistent with due regard to the well-being of the parties 
 concerned"; 1 Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian, 
 who resigned the management of an estate in the West 
 Indies because of his dislike of slavery, who had been one 
 of the leaders in an unsuccessful attempt to found the 
 Sierra Leone Colony, which was intended to be an asylum 
 for freed negroes and a trading centre for developing 
 the resources of Africa; and who gave two years of la- 
 bor to the collection of a body of facts concerning the 
 actual working of the slave system in the colonies, which 
 material furnished weapons for Buxton's use in Parlia- 
 ment; and Lord Stanley, who, as the Colonial Secretary, 
 led in carrying, as a ministerial bill, the great abolition 
 measure of August, 1833. 
 
 The Emancipation Act abolished slavery in the Brit- 
 ish Empire by purchase. The law took effect August I, 
 1834. Children of 6 years of age and under were im- 
 mediately freed; the rest, while emancipated, were yet 
 apprenticed from 5 to 7 years for three-fourths of their 
 time to their former masters. The planters were paid 
 for their losses the handsome sum of 20,000,000 pounds, 
 not a few of them being enriched by the exchange. The 
 apprentice provision was in time disregarded. 
 
68 England's Progress 
 
 The Parliament that severed the bonds of the black 
 laborers of the West Indies could not fail to recognize 
 a duty owed to the white laborers, slaving it in British 
 factories. After the introduction of machinery into the 
 weaving and spinning industries, the children were soon 
 crowded into the mills, because with machines to do the 
 heavier tasks of manufacture they could perform the 
 lighter operations equally as well as adults, and yet would 
 have to be paid hardly one-tenth as much in wages. Lazy 
 parents sent their children into the factories to get their 
 earnings. The local authorities of cities and towns who 
 had to look after the offspring of the destitute and pauper 
 classes were eager to apprentice dependent children to the 
 manufacturers for a number of years in order to lighten 
 the burden of the poor rates, and to remove the young 
 from the degrading influence of pauperized parents. The 
 general result was that boys and girls by the thousands 
 and of tenderest years, who if living to-day would be 
 found in the primary grades at school, were swept into 
 the mills. The London local officials repeatedly sent 
 out wagonloads of these children to be apprenticed to 
 the mill owners of Lancashire. 
 
 "The majority of the factory children did not begin 
 work until nine years of age, but a great many began at 
 seven and some at six and even five." 2 The regular 
 working day was for twelve hours, in some quarters thir- 
 teen; and since in many factories all losses of time due 
 to stoppage of machinery had to be made up by extra 
 work, the day was frequently prolonged to fourteen hours 
 and occasionally to sixteen. Half-hour intervals were 
 allowed for dinner and tea, but these brief recesses were 
 for cleaning the machinery as well as for eating meals. 
 It was calculated that in performing their monotonous 
 
Progressive Legislation 69 
 
 tasks back and forth in attending their machines some of 
 the children had to walk in a day a distance of twenty 
 miles. They were surrounded by a vicious moral atmos- 
 phere, were given no education worth the name, were 
 often cuffed and kicked about by older operatives of 
 brutal character, were sometimes maimed for life by 
 the unfenced-off machinery, and were early robbed of 
 their bodily vigor because denied their share of sunshine 
 and pure air. The physical and moral health of the girls 
 and young women especially suffered, a deterioration of 
 future motherhood that involved a deterioration of race. 
 These evils of unregulated factory life had deeply im- 
 pressed the minds of a few philanthropists for some years 
 previous to 1833, and since the opening of the century 
 their efforts had achieved one or two slight reforms. 
 Owing to the occurrence of a fearful epidemic due it was 
 believed to the unsanitary state of the mills, and the 
 weakened condition of the young operatives, a law was 
 enacted in 1802, which applied, however, only to factories 
 having apprenticed children, that "required the walls 
 of the mills to be whitewashed, restricted hours of labour 
 to twelve a day, and forbade beginning work before 
 six o'clock in the morning and continuing it beyond nine 
 o'clock at night." 3 In 18 16 Robert Peel was instru- 
 mental in having passed a law, applying though to cotton 
 factories only, that limited the working day to twelve 
 hours; and later the working child was given by law a 
 fourth of a holiday on each Saturday. The laws did 
 not apply to the wool and silk mills where a host of boys 
 and girls laboured; they were easily evaded by managers 
 of the special mills to which the regulations did apply; 
 and yet when fully kept, they allowed a little child to 
 be worked as many as sixty-eight hours a week. 
 
70 England's Progress 
 
 This was all the protection the state gave the factory 
 child until 1833, and yet when in this year, and at later 
 dates, the humanitarians undertook to give more they met 
 with vigorous opposition from many quarters. Lord 
 Shaftesbury, who was the most prominent and influential 
 supporter of the factory movement and whose religion 
 led him to devote his long life to philanthropic labors, 
 wrote in his private diary of the hostility he incurred 
 when urging a Ten Hours Bill in 1847. "I bad to break 
 every political connection, to encounter a most formid- 
 able array of capitalists, mill-owners, doctrinaries, and 
 men who by natural impulse hate all 'humanity-mon- 
 gers.' " 4 He named among those who then opposed the 
 reform the able statesmen, Gladstone, O'Connell, 
 Brougham, Cobden and Bright. To undertake to regulate 
 hours of labor was declared by the political economists 
 an injurious interference with the natural laws of trade. 
 It was urged that such restrictions would destroy the 
 profits of the manufacturing interest, would cause de- 
 creased wages, less employment, and the shutting down 
 of factories to the great injury of the working people, 
 would drive capital from England and would give an 
 advantage to foreign over home manufacturers. To 
 place a compulsory limitation upon the time of willing, 
 industrious laborers was declared a rank injustice, a 
 patent violation of the recognized right of freedom of 
 contract, but it was suggested also, apparently on the 
 principle that "idleness is the devil's workshop" that 
 hours of leisure might prove a disadvantage to the mor- 
 als of ignorant factory operatives. The proposed re- 
 strictions were objected to also on the ground of their 
 general inequality of effects, for it was seen to be im- 
 possible to make a law that would affect alike different 
 
Progressive Legislation 71 
 
 kinds of business. But stronger than the laissez-faire 
 theories of the economists and the views of the individual 
 and doctrinaries were human sympathy and the social 
 conscience. The findings of a Royal Commission in 
 1833, appointed to investigate factory conditions, placed 
 it beyond question that the lot of these young people was 
 inexcusably hard and dreary. The nation's heart was 
 stirred by the revelation; and in alleviation Parliament 
 passed the important act of 1833. The law prohibited 
 a child under 9 years of age from being employed at all 
 in textile factories generally, and forbade after 1835 a 
 child between 9 and 13 being worked over 8 hours a day, 
 and all children under 18 being required to work for 
 more than 69 hours a week. It made modest provi- 
 sions for the children's recreation and schooling, imposed 
 on the factories a few sanitary regulations, and, better 
 still, provided for the appointment of inspectors, whose 
 duty was to see that the requirements of the law were 
 observed. 
 
 The act is noteworthy. In it the state recognized a 
 responsibility connected with the education of its children. 
 Its inspection feature was of value not only in enforc- 
 ing the law, but also in providing reports which gave the 
 information necessary for making later improvements 
 in the measure. It marks a distinct advance on the part 
 of the state in dealings with labor. For a long period 
 the chief duty the government seemed to consider it 
 owed to laborers was to compel them to work, to stay 
 at home and to be satisfied with customary wages; after- 
 wards the government, under the belief that all legal 
 restrain on freedom of contract was harmful, gave the 
 laborer perfect liberty to go anywhere and to work 
 for whom or what he pleased, leaving him to take the 
 
72 England's Progress 
 
 full consequence of his acts ; and this consequence, owing 
 to his improvident and economic dependence, turned out 
 not infrequently to be virtual slavery, as was the case with 
 the factory employees. But in the law of 1833 the gov- 
 ernment changed again its position, and now recognized 
 an obligation to furnish protection to laborers not in 
 the interest of the laboring class only, but for the good 
 of society as well. This position the state has occupied 
 ever since. The work of the early humanitarians, Oas- 
 tler, Owen, Sadler, Southey, Coleridge, Fielding and 
 Shaftesbury have continued to bear fruitage up into the 
 very present, the reform of 1833 being but the first of a 
 long series of factory and mines acts extending through- 
 out the century. In the enforcement of the voluminous 
 protective labor code of to-day are employed a host of 
 inspectors, certified managers, medical men, and members 
 of district councils, and various officials local and central. 
 Governmental regulation of industrial pursuits is now a 
 well established principle of English law, and generally 
 accepted. 
 
 In the year 1834 Parliament effected another much 
 needed reform, that of the Poor Law System. "Sturdy 
 beggars" had received the attention of the English legis- 
 lature as early as the days of the Tudors. According 
 to an act passed in the reign of Henry VIII the able- 
 bodied beggar was to be "whipped for the first offense; 
 to have his right ear cropped for the second offense; 
 and to be imprisoned, tried, and if convicted to suffer 
 death as the enemy of the commonwealth for the third 
 offense." Another law enacted under Edward VI or- 
 dered the idle and vagabond to be "branded with a V, 
 and to be adjudged a slave for two years. If he ran away 
 he was to be branded with an S, and to be a slave for 
 
Progressive Legislation 73 
 
 life." 5 Under Elizabeth in 1601 a statute was made 
 which, seeking to check vagrancy and mendicancy, drew 
 a clear distinction between aged and impotent persons 
 too weak to work, and the lazy ones able but unwilling 
 to work. The former class were to have, as a right, 
 relief from the parish rates; the latter were to be set 
 to work. To the tramps punishment was to be meted 
 out. The principle was right but the statute was poorly 
 administered. Shocked at the discomforts of the inmates 
 of the poor houses, Parliament in the latter year of the 
 eighteenth century in the period of warfare with America 
 and France began sanctioning the system of relieving 
 the poor in their homes; and of allowing from taxes 
 "grants in aid of wages." Two ill-advised measures 
 passed during the reign of George III were ( 1 ) the Gil- 
 bert Act of 1782 which allowed the guardians of the 
 poor in a parish to find for the unemployed applicant 
 for aid work near his house, 6 and to "add to his wages 
 from the parish funds" if his earnings were insufficient 
 for his maintenance; and (2) the "sliding scale act" of 
 1795 designed to establish an insured minimum wage for 
 the laborers, which gave to the distressed person more 
 money just as the price of bread rose higher, and which 
 proportioned the size of the grant to the size of the 
 family, the greater the number of children the larger 
 the amount of aid assured. The measures were soon at- 
 tended with most disastrous consequences. Many em- 
 ployers of labor began to pay less than subsistence 
 wages, since it was seen that the laborer could depend 
 on getting a dole from the parish funds for his support. 
 With general wages thus reduced, numerous laborers, 
 finding themselves faring worse than those dependent on 
 the rates, were led to declare themselves in need of relief 
 
74 England's Progress 
 
 money. The vast majority of the rural population losing 
 self-reliance, were drawn into the whirlpool of pauper- 
 ism. Early and improvident marriages were encouraged 
 and profligacy and illegitimacy were fostered. Relief 
 once obtained seemed to be regarded as a vested interest 
 to be handed down from father to son. Much of the 
 relief was spent for intoxicants in the dramshops. There 
 were corruption and jobbery among officials handling the 
 funds, the rates being used to influence the electors of 
 parliamentary boroughs, and bribes being paid to the 
 parish officers by the shop-keepers in order to get the 
 pauper trade. Thieves, criminals, prostitutes, were often 
 the recipients of relief. Under the baneful influence of 
 the system, the poor rates steadily increased, mounting 
 from 2,500,000 pounds in 1795 to 7,000,000 pounds in 
 1833. The financial burden of the system grew intoler- 
 able, and in 1834 the reform came. The new law, born 
 out of the investigation and report of a Royal Commis- 
 sion that had labored on the problem two years, was 
 sound in principle and corrective in effect. Distinguish- 
 ing sharply and clearly between poverty and pauperism, 
 the Commission recommended that "out-door relief," that 
 is relief at home, should be given only to the aged and 
 destitute, and that the able-bodied applicants should only 
 get relief, excepting the form of medical attendance, by 
 becoming an inmate of a work-house. They advised also 
 the separation of wives from their husbands, and children 
 from their parents while in the work-house, and that the 
 burden of caring for an illegitimate child should be 
 thrown on the mother. They proposed further a thor- 
 oughgoing reform of the administrative machinery of 
 the poor-laws, by grouping parishes into unions, by con- 
 centration and improvement of the work-houses, by trans- 
 
Progressive Legislation 75 
 
 ferring the control hitherto exercised by magistrates, to 
 guardians elected by the rate-payers, and by the forma- 
 tion of a central poor-law board of three commissioners 
 to control and direct the whole system. The new scheme 
 being elastic, having three sources of law-making, Par- 
 liament, the central Local Government Board, and the 
 local Board of Guardians has in large part survived to 
 the present. Its benefits were immediate and marked. 
 At the time of the formation of the unions a district 
 of four unions with a population of 41,409 inhabitants 
 had 954 able-bodied paupers, but as early as June, 1836, 
 there were only five. In one county, Sussex, there were 
 6160 paupers when the reform was made, but in less 
 than two years the number was reduced to 124. By 
 1836 the rates were reduced in 22 counties on the aver- 
 age of 433/2 per cent. The decrease of illegitimate births 
 was phenomenal, being 10,000 or 13 per cent in two 
 years. 7 
 
 A thoroughgoing measure, of reform gained by the 
 Whigs in 1835 was the Municipal Corporations Act. 
 The municipalities in origin seem to have been little 
 settlements of tradesmen, who in mediaeval times when 
 most laborers were serfs, had gathered in some enclosed 
 or secure place in order to carry on their trades or busi- 
 ness with greater liberty and success. Finding that no 
 man whose time, person, or property could be commanded 
 by another was able to prosper in a trade, they soon 
 began to resist all outside control, disclaiming in an inde- 
 pendent spirit feudal obligations to neighboring lords, 
 and eventually succeeded in winning, sometimes by force, 
 sometimes by purchase, their full freedom. The burgh- 
 ers decreed freedom for their children, for those per- 
 sons who had served their full apprenticeship under a 
 
7 6 England's Progress 
 
 free man, and for those who married the daughters of 
 a free man. Collected at one centre with common inter- 
 ests, they were soon holding meetings of the freemen to 
 determine on measures of united action for the common 
 good. With an increasing population, however, it be- 
 came inconvenient and unsatisfactory to assemble the 
 whole body of freemen whenever public affairs were to 
 be discussed and regulated, and in time the management 
 of the community's life was entrusted to committees. 
 These committees gradually built up the towns, but they 
 also gradually acquired all governmental authority. Un- 
 der the Tudor sovereigns who wanted to conciliate these 
 centres of industry, some of which had representatives 
 in the Commons, many of these towns were able to secure 
 charters of incorporation, and in most cases charters 
 that lessened popular government. The corporation, 
 which virtually meant the ruling body, could limit the 
 number of freemen, and in the majority of the towns the 
 mass of the inhabitants became at length unfree. Of 
 Liverpool's population numbering 165,000 souls, only 
 5000 were free, and of Portsmouth's 46,000 only 102. 8 
 When the corporation increased the number of freemen, 
 only those were added who would be apt to further the 
 political and material interests of those already in author- 
 ity or who would support a particular candidate for the 
 borough's seat in Parliament. Honorary freemen were 
 often created by the corporation who were non-residents, 
 and only visited the towns on election days. Such indi- 
 viduals, though termed "freemen," were merely servile 
 underlings casting their votes at the behest of some po- 
 litical superior, who was in a position to confer gifts or 
 favors. In many towns exemptions from tolls, exclusive 
 rights of pasturage in fields belonging to the corpora- 
 
Progressive Legislation 77 
 
 tion, and special rights in the charitable funds, were be- 
 stowed on the freemen. In some small boroughs, every- 
 thing practically had been put in the hands of the mayor. 
 No accounts were rendered; all was done in secret. 
 The funds of the municipality were squandered in ban- 
 quets, in paying the unearned salaries attached to use- 
 less offices held by the friends and relatives of the coun- 
 cilmen. Valuable public contracts and property were let 
 to councilmen at figures highly profitable to themselves, 
 and much of the money granted for objects of local util- 
 ity quickly found its way to private pockets. Of taxes 
 raised in some boroughs 92 per cent came from the 
 unenfranchised, 8 per cent from voters. Grave evils 
 existed in the judicial system of some of the towns, 
 illiterate magistrates presiding over courts that possessed 
 the power of pronouncing even death sentences. 
 
 The act of 1835, presented by John Russell, was far- 
 reaching in its effect. It affected an aggregate popula- 
 tion of 2,000,000 people, and imposed on 183 boroughs, 
 London excepted, a uniform system of government. The 
 one supreme authority, placed in control of every depart- 
 ment of the local government, was the town council, 
 consisting of mayor, aldermen and councillors. The 
 councillors were to be elected for three years' term of 
 office by the resident rate payers, the right to vote being 
 given to those who had paid taxes, during the three years 
 preceding, and to those who rented property worth 10 
 pounds the year. The aldermen were to be elected by 
 the councillors for 6 years' term of office, and the coun- 
 cillors and aldermen together were to elect the mayor 
 who was to hold office for one year only. The proceed- 
 ings of the council were to be public, and all accounts had 
 to be audited. The bill provided that exclusive trading 
 
78 England's Progress 
 
 privileges should be abolished and that the management 
 of the charitable funds should be entrusted to a specially 
 appointed board of trustees. It declared the corpora- 
 tion to consist of the council and the constituency, and 
 the management of the borough funds to belong to the 
 whole body collectively. The general result of the re- 
 form was to restore self-government in the boroughs, 
 and to give control of public affairs to the substantial 
 middle class. 
 
 Of the many significant reforms achieved during the 
 period under consideration, none was more far-reach- 
 ing and beneficial than that of the repeal of the corn laws. 
 These measures formed the basis of England's tariff sys- 
 tem, and their repeal meant the eventual fall of the entire 
 artificial structure of protection. The laws placed high 
 duties on different sorts of imported grain and other food 
 products : were passed for the benefit of landlords, and 
 were in origin largely the fruit of the teachings of the 
 seventeenth century political economists, who held it to 
 be an essential of right national policy to protect land. 
 From the days of Henry VI encouragement had been 
 given to agriculture at various times by means of placing 
 bounties on exports, or duties on imports of grain. The 
 most recent corn laws belonged in spirit to the age of com- 
 mercial restrictions and of state interference in trade ex- 
 isting before the nation had learned Adam Smith's free 
 trade principles and Jeremy Bentham's views concerning 
 the benefits of individualism and freedom of contract. 
 They formed a chief part of a system of protective legis- 
 lation that was extended until by 1842 it had placed tariff 
 duties on no less than 1200 articles. In 18 15 excessively 
 high corn duties were placed with the purpose of assist- 
 ing the farming interests to recover from the depression 
 
Progressive Legislation 79 
 
 and losses that followed from the era of foreign war. 
 Corn laws were passed in 1822 and 1828 and a sliding 
 scale of duties was introduced, which provided a varying 
 tariff, so that when the price of wheat grown at home was 
 lowered the duty advanced and when it rose above a 
 certain figure the duty was lessened. Parliament seems 
 to have enacted such legislation in the hope of making 
 the price of grain more stable, which did not turn out 
 to be the case, however; and also in the belief that to 
 insure the agriculturist a good remunerative price for 
 his produce was to confer a blessing on the whole coun- 
 try. But as these measures made bread high, a result 
 apparent and painful to the masses in times of scant 
 harvests and of business depression, and as they restricted 
 commerce and the purchase of English manufactured 
 goods by foreign countries, a result injurious to the inter- 
 ests of the shippers and captains of industry, the benefi- 
 cent nature of the laws began soon to be questioned by 
 many. As a result in 1839 was formed at Manchester 
 the Anti-Corn Law League. Cobden, Bright, Villiers, 
 Wilson, and Potter were among the indefatigable work- 
 ers of the League, some of whom, it is said, for the next 
 six years met in counsel twice a day for promoting the 
 purposes of their organization. Its financial support 
 steadily increased from year to year, the subscriptions 
 to the League rising from 5,000 pounds in 1839 to 2 5°>- 
 000 pounds in 1845. The order discountenanced alto- 
 gether the use of violent means to influence legislation, 
 and made its appeal to the nation through persuasive 
 argument solely. To the manufacturer, it said, throwing* 
 open the ports will make it possible for foreign countries 
 to buy our factory products with their farm products; 
 and that English manufacturing interests, having an ad- 
 
80 England's Progress 
 
 vantage over other countries in fuel, machinery and me- 
 chanical processes, could compete successfully with for- 
 eign manufactures, did not need protection, and would 
 acquire foreign markets for their wares; to the ship- 
 owners and merchants, it showed that free trade meant 
 more freightage, and greater commerce generally; to 
 the laborer, that it would insure steady employment and 
 at better wages in the factories; to the agriculturist, that 
 the losses sustained on corn would be more than com- 
 pensated for by the increased ability of all classes, grow- 
 ing out of the national prosperity, to purchase farm prod- 
 ucts; and to all the people it said the price of bread 
 would be lowered. One plain argument it employed was 
 to have bakers offer to customers taxed, and untaxed 
 shilling loaves. In 1840 it distributed 160,000 circulars 
 and 150,000 pamphlets and had its speakers to deliver 
 as many as 400 lectures. 9 
 
 In a few years the educational campaign began to tell 
 in politics. Hostile newspapers admitted that "The 
 League was a great fact"; more free traders appeared 
 in Parliament ; and the leaders of the two great parties, 
 Russell and Peel, began to show signs of change of views. 
 In 1842 when preparing a tariff measure Peel had re- 
 fused outright to receive a deputation from the Anti- 
 Corn Law League but by 1845 ne h aa * come himself to ac- 
 cept at heart the tenets of the association. He had come 
 to believe that as a matter of abstract principle protective 
 duties were injurious, and that to sell in the dearest and 
 buy in the cheapest markets was the correct rule. But 
 while his free trade sympathies were strengthening he 
 was not yet of the opinion that as a matter of practical 
 statesmanship and sound just policy the corn laws should 
 be at once abolished. He was shortly forced, however, 
 
Progressive Legislation 81 
 
 to take a more advanced position by foreboding news 
 from Ireland. Approaching famine was threatened by 
 the appearance of a "blight" in the potato crop. The 
 "potato rot" made it probable in 1845 that some 3,000,- 
 000 of persons there would soon require support from 
 public or private relief. The disease reappeared in 1 846 ; 
 and not far from one-quarter of a million people died 
 from hunger, fever, and maladies resulting from lack 
 of food. Facing the prospect of actual famine for a 
 great part of the nation, Peel came to the conclusion that 
 the ports should be opened in order that the people might 
 have bread. In the late fall of 1845 ne called several 
 sessions of his cabinet in a vain effort to gain its members 
 to his own point of view. John Russell, the Whig leader, 
 noticing the unusually frequent meetings of the cabinet 
 and correctly divining the meaning of their confused 
 counsels, saw that free trade would in all probability 
 come quite soon. Playing for party advantage no doubt, 
 as well as seeking the general welfare, he promptly de- 
 clared himself a convert to free-trade and forthwith is- 
 sued a ringing manifesto, which showed that the Whigs 
 could be counted on to abolish the corn laws. This 
 was November 22. Peel, the Conservative leader, was 
 forced to act. For ten days (November 25— December 
 5) he did his best to win his colleagues in the ministry 
 to stand with him for repeal, but failing in this tendered 
 his resignation to the Queen. Russell was then sum- 
 moned to form a ministry, but failed in the attempt. 
 Peel was recalled by the Queen who reformed his min- 
 istry and carried through Parliament the repeal measure 
 in spite of an intense and long drawn out opposition from 
 the majority of his own party. Peel's bill was introduced 
 January 27, 1846; but the Conservative opposition, led 
 
82 England's Progress 
 
 by George Bentinck and Benjamin Disraeli, and using 
 every conceivable sort of dilatory and obstructionist tac- 
 tics delayed its final passage in the House until May 15th. 
 In the Commons 223 Liberals and Whigs and 104 Con- 
 servatives voted for it and 229 Conservatives and Tories 
 voted against it. In the House of Lords it passed with- 
 out difficulty, June 25, 1846. On that very day, however, 
 the angry Conservatives got their revenge on Peel by 
 defeating his Coercion Bill for Ireland, which showed he 
 could no longer hope to lead the party, and caused his 
 immediate resignation as Prime Minister. 
 
 Especially active and demonstrative in the years 1838, 
 1842, 1848 was the Chartist movement. In 1842 the 
 National Chartist Association had 40,000 members and 
 400 affiliated societies. Its aims were ( 1 ) manhood suf- 
 frage (2) vote by ballot (3) annual Parliaments (4) the 
 abolition of the property qualification for the members 
 of Parliament (5) equal electoral districts (6) the pay- 
 ment for service as a representative in the Commons. 
 O'Connor was the prominent leader, whose paper, "The 
 Northern Star," had at one time a circulation of 50,000 
 copies. To attract attention to their demands great mass 
 meetings, numbering hundreds of thousands, and impres- 
 sive torchlight processions at night were held, and mon- 
 ster petitions with millions of signatures were sent to 
 Parliament. Peaceful methods failing, the effects of riot- 
 ing, rick-burning, and strikes were here and there tried. 
 The collapse of the movement was due in the main to 
 the fact that the physical force group, advocating violent 
 methods acquired predominating influence in the counsels 
 of its supporters. But though Chartism then failed, its 
 ideas have lived and triumphed, all of its six demands, 
 except that for annual elections, having since been gained. 
 
Progressive Legislation 83 
 
 Other advances made during the era under considera- 
 tion were taking from the East India Company the mo- 
 nopoly of the trade of the East and throwing that com- 
 merce open to the merchants of the world (1833) ; the 
 commutation into money charges of tithes in kind and 
 services in England (1836) ; the reform of the marriage 
 laws, that allowed persons about to be married to choose 
 what religious ceremony they preferred, and to marry 
 without any if they cared to (1836) ; the establishment 
 of a general registration system for births, deaths and 
 marriages (1836) ; the establishment of the penny postal 
 system (1840) ; the revision of the charter of the Bank of 
 England that gave the country a safer currency, the de- 
 partments of banking and issue being separated, the 
 power of issuing money being centralized, and the pro- 
 vision made that beyond a certain amount no paper 
 should be issued except against bullion only (1844) ; the 
 passage of the Canada Bill that conferred on the Ca- 
 nadians the essentials of internal self-government (1840). 
 In 1830 was the formal opening of the Liverpool and 
 Manchester Steam Railway, and in 1838 a steam driven 
 vessel crossed the Atlantic Ocean. By 1845 the blast 
 furnace process of producing iron had been perfected, 
 multiplying the demand for coal and increasing the pig 
 iron output ten-fold. In 1838 Parliament in making a 
 grant of 20,000 pounds for building new schools began 
 laying the foundation of a national system of education. 
 In 1836 the University of London was established and 
 in 1850 towns were empowered to levy a small tax for 
 the maintenance of libraries. The removal of stamp 
 duties on newspapers and of taxes on advertisements 
 and paper in the mid-century period advanced knowl- 
 edge and enlightenment. The abolition of the window 
 
84 England's Progress 
 
 tax in 1 85 1 meant less disease, as did the forming of the 
 Local Health Boards of the municipalities after the 
 cholera visitation in 1848. The working day of the chil- 
 dren between eight and thirteen years of age was cut 
 to six and a half hours in 1844, and all underground 
 work for boys under ten and for females was forbidden. 
 In the same year imprisonment for debts below 20 pounds 
 was abolished, and duelling was checked through an army 
 regulation declaring "that any officer who fought a duel 
 would be cashiered." Earlier laws had been passed for 
 prevention of cruelty to children and animals; for stop- 
 ping the brutal baiting of bulls and bears, and for insur- 
 ing the employment of more humane methods of dealing 
 with criminals and lunatics. In 1843 was opened the first 
 public telegraph office. Indicative of the progress of the 
 era was the great international exhibition of arts and in- 
 dustries held in London in 185 1. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Walpole: History of England from 181 5, Vol. 3, p. 393. 
 
 Walpole; Vol. 3, p. 416. 
 
 Walpole: Vol. 3, p. 418. 
 
 Dicey: Law and Opinion in England, p. 233. 
 
 Walpole: Vol. 3, p. 445-446. 
 
 Oman: England in the Nineteenth Century, p. 84. 
 
 Bright: Vol. 1689-1837, p. 1452. 
 
 Walpole: Vol. 4, p. 34. 
 
 Walpole: Vol. 4, p. 397. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 FOREIGN POLICY UNDER PALMERSTON 
 
 During the period 1 848-1 865 external events occupied 
 the government and the public mind about as exclusively 
 as did domestic reforms in the period 1 832-1 846. The 
 forceful statesman who shaped England's foreign policy 
 in these years was Lord Palmerston. With the return 
 of the Whigs to power after the resignation of Peel, the 
 Conservative leader in 1846, he was entrusted with the 
 Foreign Office by the new Prime Minister, John Russell; 
 and either as Secretary of Foreign Affairs or as Prime 
 Minister he was to be in control of England's foreign rela- 
 tions for an almost unbroken period of twenty years. He 
 had had five years' experience at the Foreign Office under 
 Lord Grey, 1830-1835. England's external policy for 
 the better part of three decades then was the work of 
 Palmerston, one of the ablest men of his day, abler pos- 
 sibly than any one of the four prime ministers under 
 whom he served, Grey, Melbourne, Russell and Aber- 
 deen. For ten years preceding his death in 1865 he 
 was at the head of the government, and for sixty years 
 he was a member of the House of Commons. He was a 
 heady, self-confident, decisive minister, having his own 
 opinion on all diplomatic questions and not afraid to ex- 
 press it, and "was looked upon by his contemporaries as 
 the ideal exponent of a 'spirited foreign policy.' " x 
 
 The outstanding feature of Palmerston's work in the 
 
 early thirties was the union of France and England in 
 
 85 
 
86 England's Progress 
 
 support of the principles of liberalism and constitutional 
 monarchy in Europe as against the three powers of the 
 East, Austria, Russia and Germany, that were seeking 
 to maintain despotic rule. Contrary to the wishes of 
 the Holy Alliance, there was established in France in 
 1830 by revolution a liberal constitutional monarchy 
 under King Louis Philippe. The controlling power in 
 this government of the Citizen King was lodged in the 
 hands of the well-to-do middle classes. England was also 
 a constitutional monarchy, governed until 1832 by a 
 nobility and landed aristocracy chiefly, but then experienc- 
 ing a political revolution that put in control the middle 
 classes also. With similar institutions and like liberal 
 tendencies it was not unnatural for the two countries to 
 draw together when acting in regard to agitations in 
 neighboring states that sought to get rid of absolutism 
 and to establish forms of government not unlike theirs. 
 
 The separation of Belgium from Holland and its crea- 
 tion into a strong independent kingdom (1830-31) was 
 largely the work of England and France, done in direct 
 opposition to the will of the Holy Allies. To bring the 
 King of Holland to terms the two Western powers placed 
 an embargo on Dutch ships, blockaded the Scheldt, and 
 besieged Antwerp. 2 The French interfered at the first, 
 it seems, with the ambitious designs not only of assisting 
 the Belgians to throw off the yoke of Holland and to 
 set up a government for themselves but also of annexing 
 their territory to free France; but Palmerston's diplo- 
 macy and firmness thwarted that plan. At his insistence 
 the French troops who had crossed into Belgium were 
 withdrawn. 
 
 About the same time (1 831-1833) France and Eng- 
 
Foreign Policy Under Palmerston 87 
 
 land were led to interfere in Portugal. Don Miguel, a 
 cruel despot, had committed frequent unjustifiable acts 
 of violence against Englishmen and Frenchmen that had 
 been accused of political offenses. Palmerston by dis- 
 patching six warships to the Tagus had obtained a pe- 
 cuniary indemnity and public apology (May, 183 1 ) and 
 France had carried off some of the best ships of the Por- 
 tuguese navy (July, 1831) when a movement was set on 
 foot by Don Pedro, to remove from the throne his 
 brother, the absolute Don Miguel, and establish consti- 
 tutional rule under his daughter, later the Queen Maria. 
 While the two Western powers as governments professed 
 a strict neutrality, they allowed an amount of volunteer 1 
 assistance that enabled the liberal constitutional party to 
 triumph. Don Pedro's troops were in large part French 
 and English volunteers, a Frenchman commanded his 
 army and an Englishman his fleet. Pedro's forces took 
 the capitol on the 24th of July, 1833. 
 
 In Spain there was a contest also in 1833 between a 
 young queen representing liberal principles of government 
 and an uncle representing arbitrary rule. Isabella, the 
 three-year-old Queen, and her mother, Christina, the 
 Regent, who succeeded to the throne at the death of Fer- 
 dinand VII, being supported by the constitutionalists of 
 Spain and other countries, were able not only to hold 
 their own against Don Carlos, but even to expel him 
 eventually from the country, though he had the friend- 
 ship of the clergy, peasantry, old nobility and absolutists. 
 When Don Carlos and Don Miguel threatened to make 
 common cause against the young queen, Palmerston de- 
 cided to intervene, and arranged an alliance of Spain, 
 Portugal, France and England to expel the two men 
 
88 England's Progress 
 
 from the Peninsula. Spain and Portugal were to have, 
 if needed, the assistance of a French Army and an Eng- 
 lish Fleet. In this support of constitutionalism Palmer- 
 ston probably had as his main purpose directing a blow 
 against Russia, Prussia and Austria, the allied absolute 
 powers of the East. The liberal party triumphed in 
 Spain as in Portugal, though Don Carlos did not lay 
 down his arms until 1840. 
 
 Palmerston would have been glad for Poland to have 
 been successful in her revolt against Russia in 1830, and 
 in all probability would have given help, had he not feared 
 lest England's aid to the insurrectionists might cause 
 Russia to try to inflict injury on England's interests in 
 the East. It was against the vigorous protests of both 
 England and France that Russia interfered in Turkey 
 at the call of the Sultan, hard-pressed by the Pasha of 
 Egypt, and made with the Porte the advantageous Treaty 
 of Unkiar Skelesi, 3 July 8, 1833. This treaty opened the 
 Bosphorus to the Russians and closed the Dardanelles 
 to the war ships of other powers, an advance for 
 Russia that threatened the security of England's road to 
 India. 
 
 In the trying years of 1848-49 when a wave of revolu- 
 tion was sweeping throughout almost every country of 
 Europe, Palmerston pursued the cautious policy of non- 
 intervention. While he hated to see the constitutional 
 struggles in Italy and Germany put down by Austria, 
 and the uprising in Hungary crushed out by Austria and 
 Russia, he would not give those in revolt any military aid 
 but only pressed counsels of peace and order on the con- 
 tending parties, a great disappointment to the patriots. 
 He correctly divined no doubt that England's entrance 
 into the widespread crusade for national rights would 
 
Foreign Policy Under Palmerston 89 
 
 engage her in a war with most of the governments of 
 Europe. 
 
 In France the revolution of 1848 substituted a republic 
 under Louis Napoleon for the monarchy of Louis Phil- 
 lippe, and by 1852 Napoleon had made himself Em- 
 peror. Palmerston preferred the stronger government 
 of the empire to the republic that had been full of shams, 
 and hastened, therefore, before first getting the sanction 
 of the Queen and the Ministry, to notify the French Am- 
 bassador of his recognition of the new imperial govern- 
 ment. His audacity was not relished by Victoria, nor 
 by the Prime Minister, John Russell; and as a result he 
 was dismissed from office. Palmerston, however, got 
 even with Russell two months later, leading a group of 
 Russell's friends into the Opposition lobby against the 
 Militia Bill, which defeated the measure and caused the 
 overthrow of the Whig ministry. But the Conservative 
 ministry of Lord Derby lasted only a few months (Feb.— 
 Dec, 1852), and by the end of the year, 1852, a Whig 
 ministry was again in power of which both Palmerston 
 and Russell were members. By 1855 Palmerston had 
 been put at the head of the government, and with the 
 exception of one brief intermission (Feb., 1858, to June, 
 1859, when the Conservatives under Lord Derby were 
 again in control) he held the office of Prime Minister 
 until his death in 1865. 
 
 In 1855 the Crimean War was being waged. The con- 
 flict had begun by Russia's sending an ambassador, Prince 
 Menshikov, to Constantinople demanding a formal treaty 
 from the Sultan granting Russia the right of protecting 
 the Greek Christians in the East. The English ambas- 
 sador at the Porte, Stratford, considered that Menshi- 
 kov's demands virtually meant "the surrender to Russian 
 
90 England's Progress 
 
 influence, management and authority of the Greek 
 churches and clergy throughout Turkey, and eventually, 
 therefore, of the whole Greek population dependent on 
 the priests." 4 Realizing that Russia's move had as its 
 ulterior purpose territorial aggression on Turkey, which 
 neither France nor England fancied, Stratford, in com- 
 pany with the French Ambassador, persuaded the Sultan 
 to refuse Menshikov's request, whereupon Czar Nicholas 
 ordered a military force to occupy Roumania, a part of 
 the Sultan's dominions, which being done soon led to a 
 union of England and France against Russia, and to 
 open warfare. Russia's troops entered Turkish territory 
 in July, 1853, and a few months later a Russian squad- 
 ron destroyed a Turkish fleet at Sinope. England and 
 France then sent their warships through the Bosphorus, 
 forcing the Russians to take refuge in the harbour of 
 Sebastopol (January, 1854). They next issued an ulti- 
 matum to the Czar, threatening hostility unless he with- 
 drew his forces from Turkish territory. Their order 
 was disregarded, and they declared war, March 27, 1854. 
 Though Lord Aberdeen was the Prime Minister at this 
 time, it was his Secretary, Palmerston, that pressed Eng- 
 land on to the contest, and when general dissatisfaction 
 with Aberdeen's slack and dilatory conduct of the war 
 caused his resignation in 1855, it was the energetic Pal- 
 merston who was given his office. In May, 1855, Victor 
 Immanuel, King of Sardinia, added some of his troops 
 to the military forces of England and France. The war 
 lasted two years, cost England 77,000,000 pounds, added 
 33,000,000 to the national debt, and took the lives of 
 20,000 British soldiers, most of whom died from disease 
 and neglect due to inexcusable army mismanagement. 
 The siege of Sebastopol by the allied forces lasted 11 
 
Foreign Policy Under P aimer ston 91 
 
 months, and cost 100,000 lives. In the famous charge 
 of the Light Brigade, caused by a misinterpreted order, 
 — forward for a mile and a half under a concentrated 
 fire from all sides, and then return, — there was a loss of 
 113 killed and 154 wounded out of 670 cavalrymen. 
 The want of proper shelter, diet, medicines, nursing, and 
 hospital service caused a frightful death-rate, thousands 
 dying from cholera, scurvy, dysentery, and fever. Be- 
 fore Florence Nightingale and her nurses had introduced 
 better conditions, the daily average of the sick for awhile 
 was not much under 14,000 patients. With the fall of 
 Sebastopol, September 5, 1855, the defence of which cost 
 Russia not far from 250,000 lives, the war drew towards 
 a close. The peace terms were not concluded, however, 
 until the Treaty of Paris, March 30, 1856. This agree- 
 ment 5 provided for Russia's restoration of Turkish terri- 
 tory occupied during the war; the recognition of the integ- 
 rity of the Ottoman Empire and its admission as a state 
 into the "concert of Europe" ; the promise of non-interven- 
 tion on the part of European states in Turkey's internal 
 affairs; the promise of the Sultan to better protect his 
 Christian subjects; the prohibition of the ships-of-war of 
 any other nation entering the Black Sea, and of the estab- 
 lishing of arsenals on its coasts by Russia or Turkey; the 
 free navigation of the Danube; the abolition of Russia's 
 protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia, and the in- 
 dependent administration of these provinces under the 
 suzerainty of the Sultan and the joint guarantee of the 
 powers. In this war England had successfully thwarted 
 Russia, saving Turkey from her grasp; but she did not 
 succeed in her hopes of permanently checking or crippling 
 Russia or of reforming the Ottoman State. The Eastern 
 Question still remained. The war showed to England 
 
92 England's Progress 
 
 the ill preparedness oi her military organizations; gave 
 to the Turkish government an increased importance, 
 added to the French military glory, and secured to the 
 
 Sardinians the Friendship of France that aided them in 
 
 Ousting Austria from l.ombardy in iSsO. The treaty, a 
 European settlement, received the signatures of Austria, 
 England, Piedmont, France, Russia and Turkey, 
 
 In 1856 Kngland became involved in a brief war with 
 Persia. The Shah, at the instigation oi Russia had tried 
 to conquer Afghanistan and had laid siege to 1 lerat. To 
 keep this difficult mountainous country, Afghanistan, as a 
 butler state between Russia and India was, and is, Mug- 
 land's aim. PalmerstOI) felt that Persia's advance 
 should be resisted on the principle oi repelling "the first 
 opening oi trenches against India by Russia." Then too 
 the Shah was not observing his treaty obligations with 
 England. Friendly remonstrances having failed, a mili- 
 tary and naval force under the command of Sir James 
 Outran! was promptly sent to the Persian Gulf, the port 
 oi Bushire was captured, and an inland advance under 
 Outram and Havelock made that resulted in capturing 
 owe or two fortified stations, in defeating the Persian 
 troops that ottered resistance, and in the Shah's evacua- 
 tion of Herat and suit for peace. In March, 1857, a 
 peace treaty was signed in which the Shah promised a 
 withdrawal of troops from Herat, a relinquishment of 
 all claims of sovereignty over any part of Afghanistan, 
 an abstention from all interference with the indepen- 
 dence of the state, and the submission for settlement of 
 all differences that might arise with Russia to the friendly 
 offices of the British government before recourse should 
 be had to arms. 
 
Foreign Policy Under Palmerston 93 
 
 In 1856 Palmerston decided to make war on China be- 
 cause officials there had seized a vessel flying the English 
 flag. The ship seems to have been a piratical craft, but 
 none the less the Prime Minister interpreted the act as an 
 insult to the flag, as did the English people, and hos- 
 tilities were begun. Owing to the outbreak of a serious 
 mutiny in India, to suppress which demanded the whole 
 strength and attention of the government for a year or 
 more, the Chinese quarrel was not settled until i860. 
 In 1858 ,! Pekin was threatened by a fleet and army, forts 
 on the Peiho River were stormed, and the Emperor forced 
 to promise reparation and the opening of certain ports. 
 But the engagements made in this Treaty of Tien-Tsing 
 (1858) the Chinese government did not keep. So in 
 1859 the English, incensed by the murder of certain 
 British envoys and supported now by the French, who 
 had grievances also, stormed the forts again, took Pekin 
 and plundered and burnt the Emperor's Summer Palace. 
 China then yielded. An indemnity of 8,000,000 taels 
 was imposed, the port of Tien-Tsing was opened to 
 British trade, a small part of Canton was ceded to Great 
 Britain, as the dependency of Hongkong; and the for- 
 mer Treaty of Tien-Tsing was properly ratified. This 
 provided for the opening of several ports, the having of 
 consuls, the statement of the judicial rights of subjects, 
 and the permanent establishment at Pekin of a British 
 Minister. 
 
 In these same years ( 1859-6 1 ) the Italians under Vic- 
 tor Immanuel, Cavour and Garibaldi were building up a 
 United Italy, by overthrowing the petty princes of Cen- 
 tral Italy and pressing back Austria, a feat very pleasing 
 to Palmerston. In 1861 the new kingdom was pro- 
 
94 England's Progress 
 
 claimed, which included then all of Italy except Rome and 
 Venice, the one held by the Pope supported by the Cath- 
 olic French until 1870 and the other held by Austria 
 until 1866. 
 
 In the desperate, unsuccessful Polish insurrection 
 against Russian control in 1862—63, and in the Schleswig- 
 Holstein secession from Denmark made possible by the 
 assistance rendered by Austria and especially by Prussia, 
 which latter kingdom eventually got the duchies, Pal- 
 merston remonstrated, but in vain, in the interest of the 
 Poles and Danes. Had Napoleon III been willing to 
 co-operate with him, an armed intervention of the French 
 and English would probably have occurred. 
 
 In the American War of Secession (1861-1865) Palm- 
 erston was not slow in recognizing the Confederates as 
 belligerents, an act very objectionable to the Federals, 
 but not unpleasing to many Englishmen. While there was 
 a considerable body of people in England who favored the 
 North as being engaged in a crusade for the abolition of 
 slavery, there was also a large party favorable to the 
 South, some of whom disliked the Northerners as com- 
 mercial rivals and high protectionists, others of whom re- 
 garded the Confederates as in a noble struggle for free- 
 dom, and still others who "thought that the balance of 
 power in the world would be better kept if the vast re- 
 public in the West split asunder." The effects of the 
 Federal blockade of southern ports were keenly felt in 
 Great Britain. Since as yet India and Egypt were not 
 serious rivals of America in cotton growing, the Lanca- 
 shire cotton factories were directly dependent on 
 Southern exports of raw material. In this industry the 
 manufacturers had to cease operations, and "skilled 
 artisans were thrown out of work at the rate of 10,000 
 
Foreign Policy Under Palmerston 95 
 
 a week." In the latter part of 1862 many of the labor- 
 ing population of the cotton factory districts had to be 
 supported by charity. The Government gave 600,000 
 pounds for their aid and 2,000,000 more were raised by 
 general subscriptions. 7 "In December, 1862, some 
 50,000 persons were receiving regular relief, and the 
 weekly loss of wages was estimated at 168,000 pounds." 8 
 England was brought perilously near to war with the 
 Federal government when the British naval steamer 
 "Trent" voyaging between neutral ports was stopped by 
 the Captain of a Federal man-of-war, in order to take 
 from it two Confederate envoys, Mason and Slidell, who 
 were on their way from Havana to Europe. At one 
 time in the controversy, before the captives were sur- 
 rendered, Palmerston began to send into Canada a con- 
 siderable army; the militia and volunteers in the province 
 were put upon a war footing; and fiery feeling was kin- 
 dled throughout the United Kingdom in vindication of 
 insulted honor. This state of opinion in England ac- 
 counted in part for the ease with which Confederate 
 agents succeeded in having fitted out in British dock- 
 yards destructive privateers, such as the Alabama, 
 Georgia, Florida, Shenandoah and Rappahannock. The 
 failure of the English government to detain the Alabama* 
 after having been notified by the Federal authorities that 
 the vessel was a Southern war ship in disguise, cost Great 
 Britain 3,000,000 pounds, an award granted in 1872 by 
 a board of arbitration sitting at Geneva. Palmerston's 
 ministry hardly reckoned that their Southern sympathies 
 would cost England quite so much in gold. When this 
 war closed in April, 1865, Palmerston was but within a 
 few months of the end of his long and active career. He 
 died October 18, 1865, at the advanced age of 81. 
 
g6 England's Progress 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Oman: p. 83. 
 
 2. Bright: Constitutional Monarchy, p. 1463. 
 
 3. Bright: Constitutional Monarchy, p. 1465. 
 
 4. Low and Sanders: p. 101. 
 
 5. Low and Sanders: p. 124. 
 
 6. Oman: p. 141. 
 
 7. Oman: p. 148-149. 
 
 8. Bright: Growth of Democracy, p. 382. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF RUSSELL 
 
 1865-1866 
 
 With the death of Palmerston in 1865, the veteran 
 Whig, Earl John Russell, at the advanced age of 74 suc- 
 ceeded to the Premiership. 
 
 Just after accession to power the government received 
 news of a negro insurrection in Jamaica. A considerable 
 crowd of blacks having grievances as to wages, rents and 
 administration of law and justice, but especially angered 
 by an attempt to arrest and punish some of their number 
 who had beaten a policeman, began rioting. They broke 
 into stores, into the jail, burnt the court house, killed 
 18 men at the start, and then scattered in parties through 
 the country, attacking plantations and murdering some 
 of the whites. Martial law was proclaimed in the dis- 
 trict of revolt by Mr. Eyre, Governor of the island; 
 troops were sent in, and the infliction of most summary 
 punishments begun. Though the rebellion was quickly 
 put down, martial law continued in force for three weeks 
 longer and vengeance was not satisfied before a thousand 
 dwellings were burned, 439 persons put to death, and 600 
 more, many of them women, severely flogged. One Mr. 
 Gordon, a proprietor and Baptist preacher, who was 
 wrongly supposed to have inspired the insurrection, was 
 tried by court martial, condemned on the flimsiest sort of 
 evidence and executed. Such murderous proceedings in 
 the name of law stirred up so much criticism in England, 
 
 97 
 
98 England's Progress 
 
 that the government was led to appoint a commission to 
 enquire into the facts of the situation. The commis- 
 sioners reported that while the rising was of a most dan- 
 gerous character, and Governor Eyre was to be com- 
 mended for his promptness, skill and vigour in suppres- 
 sing it, still martial law had been continued much too 
 long, that executions had been too frequent, that the burn- 
 ing of many houses was wanton and cruel, and much of 
 the flogging entirely barbarous. Governor Eyre was 
 therefore recalled to England, where for several years 
 vain efforts were made by a group of men to prosecute 
 him for u high crimes and misdemeanors in acts of alleged 
 abuse and oppression under colour of execution of his 
 office as Governor of the Island." x But as Eyre's wrong 
 acts were committed in efforts to assert English author- 
 ity and supremacy, they were apt to be condoned by a 
 considerable section of the British public. The grand 
 jury threw out all bills brought against him, and in 1872 
 Parliament showed its attitude by voting a sum of money 
 to repay him for expenses incurred in defending himself. 
 In 1865 serious trouble arose in Ireland. The Fenian 
 Brotherhood, a secret society formed as early as 1858 
 in the state of New York and composed chiefly of Irish- 
 Americans, was planning a military revolt that sought 
 not only the independence of the island, but also a gen- 
 eral subversion of society and a wholesale redistribution 
 of property. The unhappy state of that country, its 
 political subjugation, its racial and religious animosities, 
 its agrarian grievances and economic ills, such as absen- 
 teeism of landlords, unfair rents, frequent ejectment of 
 tenants without compensation for improvements made, 
 lack of employment, scarcity of capital and general pov- 
 erty had caused for some years a constantly swelling 
 
The Ministry of Russell 99 
 
 stream of emigrants to seek their fortune across the 
 Atlantic in the United States. In this democratic land 
 they soon acquired the franchise and, being courted for 
 their votes as their numbers increased, they gained as 
 men and citizens a new sense of their influence and im- 
 portance. In witnessing and taking part in the great 
 national party contests and elections, they learned the 
 value and methods of political organization, and thou- 
 sands of them having been employed in the armies of 
 both the North and South during the four years' Civil 
 War got knowledge and training as soldiers. In 1865, 
 the close of the war bringing their disbandment, they 
 decided to employ their powers in an attempt to free 
 the land of their birth. Fenian outbreaks of varying 
 character appeared at different times and places, — in Ire- 
 land, in England and in Canada — but all miserably 
 failed, the treacherous informer so common in secret so- 
 cieties revealing to the government the designs of the 
 organization. It was discovered that the Fenians had 
 their factories for making bullets, pikes and cartridges; 
 that they were making efforts to win over the state gar- 
 risons and troops; that their agents were scattered all 
 through the country swearing in new supporters: and that 
 hundreds of men had been brought in from England and 
 Scotland and were being paid regular wages for the sole 
 purpose of assisting at the proper time in the insurrec- 
 tion. Alarmed by all this, Parliament, at the request of 
 the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, called a special meeting 
 and suspended the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. Over 
 a hundred arrests were promptly made. The Fenians be- 
 came frightened and the Irish-Americans in considerable 
 numbers quickly embarked for America. In May, 1866, 
 over a thousand of their class crossed the Niagara river 
 
ioo England's Progress 
 
 and invaded Canada, only to be repulsed at once, how- 
 ever, by the loyal militia. Six of the invaders were cap- 
 tured, court-martialed and shot. The raiders no doubt 
 hoped for assistance from the United States, but that 
 Government promptly denounced the movement, and de- 
 clared its unwillingness to permit on its boundary hos- 
 tile operations against a friendly power. The Fenians 
 had imagined they could further their projects by taking 
 advantage of the strained relations existing between Eng- 
 land and the United States at the close of the Civil War: 
 an estrangement due to the supposed not unfriendly atti- 
 tude of England toward the South in that conflict and to 
 such indirect aid to the Confederacy as was represented 
 in the still unadjudicated case of the Alabama Claims. 
 The Irish were attempting, it seems, to embroil the two 
 nations in strife. Among the Fenian activities in Ireland 
 were mismanaged attacks on political barracks, raids on 
 coast-guard stations to get arms and ammunition, cutting 
 telegraph wires, and placing obstructions on railways. 
 One effect of these troubles was to direct the mind of 
 England to a consideration of the needs of Ireland, 
 which was a preparation for the work of Gladstone for 
 this country when later becoming Prime Minister. 
 
 Russell's ministry marks the introduction of a new 
 order in English political life. With the passing of Palm- 
 erston and the rise to influence of Gladstone begins an 
 era of democratic liberalism. Palmerston possessed 
 the staid conservatism of the aristocratic Old Whigs. He 
 had been in the House of Commons for more than a half 
 century. For the greater part of this time he held 
 office in a Whig or Liberal ministry; and like the majority 
 of his party had faith in middle class rule but distrusted 
 the masses. The proposals of the few radicals in Parlia- 
 
The Ministry of Russell 101 
 
 ment and the noisy demands of the Chartists outside did 
 not win his favor or support. His recognized aversion 
 and opposition to political innovations gained for him 
 the allegiance of not a few Conservatives and Tories, 
 who being unable to put one of their own party at 
 the head of the government supported Palmerston 
 for fear that a more radical Liberal might come into 
 power. He did not consider it wise to increase the 
 political power of the people by lowering further the 
 franchise; and had taken as long a stride as he intended 
 to take in this direction in 1832 when the middle class, 
 the merchants and 10 pound house-holders were brought 
 into the electorate. Since 1855 ne na d been at the head 
 of the Liberal party; but he had restrained rather than 
 encouraged the efforts of the few bolder spirits within 
 it who believed improvements might be made in the con- 
 stitution. One of these was William Ewart Gladstone, 
 the ablest member in Palmerston's cabinet, who for six 
 years had been Chancellor of the Exchequer and whose 
 successful financial budgets and efficient administration of 
 office had revealed him to the nation as a statesman of 
 the first rank. He did not like Palmerston's habit of 
 making great expenditures of the people's money on mili- 
 tary purposes and contingencies, nor his way of diverting 
 the nation's thought from the consideration of needed 
 home reforms. He believed too the time was at hand 
 for a widening of the electorate. Palmerston was well 
 aware of his opposition and restiveness. "When that 
 man gets my place," the Prime Minister had said, "we 
 shall have strange doings." 
 
 Gladstone was an extraordinary man and had a remark- 
 able career. He was four times made Prime Minister, 
 heading four different administrations. He was for 
 
102 England's Progress 
 
 twenty years a Cabinet officer, for over fifty years a 
 member of the Privy Council, and for more than sixty 
 years a member of the House of Commons. Almost from 
 his first entrance into Parliament (1833) at the early 
 age of 23 just after his graduation at Oxford University 
 where he had taken a double first in classics and mathe- 
 matics, until his death (1898) at the advanced age of 
 eighty-eight he was recognized as a public man of special 
 influence and weight. For three decades at least, he was 
 the foremost man in the House of Commons. He was a 
 great admirer of Robert Peel. Both were progressive, 
 openminded students and statesmen ever seeking more 
 light on political problems, and ready, notwithstanding 
 the charge of instability or inconsistency, to change 
 position and take new and advanced ground on a question 
 when a better understanding of the facts in the case 
 seemed to warrant it. Peel's great apostasy was his 
 turning on the corn law question from protection to 
 approximately free trade. Gladstone in early years 
 opposed many causes which in later life he most ardently 
 championed. In 1833 he fought against the admission 
 of Jews to Parliament, but in 1847 ne voted for the 
 removal of Jewish disabilities. The views he expressed 
 on the subject of slavery in 1833 he himself declared six 
 years later to possess "sad defects." In the opening 
 decade of his public life he was a staunch Tory but he 
 became the recognized head of the Liberal Party for a 
 quarter of a century, and the accepted leader too eventu- 
 ally of the Irish and the Radicals. Since 1852 he and a 
 few more Peelite Tories, or advanced Conservatives, had 
 become incorporated with the Whigs and Liberals. In 
 1865 at Palmerston's death he took his place as leader 
 of the Liberals in the House of Commons. And in 
 
The Ministry of Russell 103 
 
 1866 he was championing the cause of electoral reform. 
 Very moderate in its proposals was Russell's franchise 
 measure laid before the House by Gladstone. Only 
 400,000 voters were to be added to an electorate of 
 2,000,000. But none the less it displeased a faction of 
 30 or 40 unprogressive spirits of the Liberal party. The 
 Conservatives with the aid of this disaffected group de- 
 feated the measure and dismissed the ministry. On a 
 high patriotic key were some of Gladstone's speeches 
 made at the time answering in debate his opponents who 
 objected to those who were to be added to the voting 
 list as "venal, ignorant, drunken, unreflective, violent 
 people." "Some gentlemen," he said, "deal with (elec- 
 toral) statistics, as if they were ascertaining the numbers 
 of an invading army. But the persons to whom their re- 
 marks apply are our fellow-subjects, our fellow-Chris- 
 tians, our own flesh and blood who have been lauded to 
 the skies for their good conduct." . . . "You cannot 
 fight against the future, time is on our side. The great 
 social forces which move on in their might and majesty, 
 and which the tumult of our debates does not for a mo- 
 ment impede or disturb — those great social forces are 
 against you; they are marshalled on our side; and the 
 banner which we now carry in the fight though perhaps 
 at some moment it may droop over our sinking heads, 
 yet it soon again will float in the eye of Heaven, and it 
 will be borne by the firm hands of the united people of 
 the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy, but to a 
 certain and to a not far distant victory." 2 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Low and Sanders: p. 199. 
 
 2. Morley : Life of Gladstone, Vol. 2, p. 627. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE DERBY-DISRAELI MINISTRY 
 
 1866-1868 
 
 In the work of the Derby-Disraeli ministry which ex- 
 tended from June, 1866, to December, 1868, the hand 
 of Disraeli, Gladstone's life-long rival, is evident from 
 first to last. 
 
 He had long been the trusted lieutenant of Derby, and 
 now that the latter was feeling the weight of years, he 
 was not loth to let rest upon the shoulders of the younger 
 man a full share of the responsibilities and burdens of 
 government and political leadership. In February, 
 1868, when Lord Derby, being nearly 70 years old, and 
 failing in health, retired, Disraeli succeeded to the pre- 
 miership, thus realizing the bold and definitely avowed 
 ambition of his early manhood. 
 
 Original and unique is his character, surprising and in- 
 spiring his career. He was born of Jewish parentage and 
 was as an infant "duly initiated into the covenant of 
 Abraham." At the age of twelve, however, his father 
 having already broken with the synagogue on account 
 of the imposition of a fine, the boy was baptized a Chris- 
 tian and became a member of the Church of England. 
 He was "born in a library," he once said. He was at 
 home in the fashionable world, foppish in his dress "with 
 gorgeous waistcoats, tasselled canes, flashing rings, 
 dangling gold chains and velvet coats." He was brilliant 
 
 in conversation, his wit and repartee reflecting intellec- 
 
 104 
 
The Derby-Disraeli Ministry 105 
 
 tual powers of the highest order. He was a writer of 
 popular political novels. Pure courage and unconquer- 
 able will were prominent in the make-up of the man. 
 He was defeated at the polls four times in succession in 
 his candidacy at the first for Parliament. Elected, he 
 tried in vain for twenty minutes to make his "maiden 
 speech" in the House of Commons, his voice being 
 drowned over and over again by the hoots and jeers of 
 hostile opponents there. For fifty years he was the "best 
 abused man of his time . . . accused of nearly every 
 crime in the political decalogue." 1 From a disfranchised 
 race was the blood in his veins, yet his genius and industry 
 and fighting carried him to the very top. He was promi- 
 nent in the House of Commons for nearly forty years. 
 He was raised to the peerage, being made Earl of Bea- 
 consfield in 1876. He was twice prime-minister, becoming 
 the personal friend of the Queen and the statesman of 
 especial influence at Court. Among his honours were a 
 D.C.L. of Oxford University, an LL.D. of Edinburgh 
 University, the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University, 
 and Knight of the Garter. Considered at first a mere 
 political adventurer and regarded therefore with suspicion 
 by conservative men in Parliament he in the end became 
 the head, guide, and spokesman of that very class. He 
 proved a cherished friend of the landed and propertied 
 classes, and a staunch loyalist to Church, Country and 
 Queen. Building up and "educating" the Conservative 
 party he inserted in its creed two positive and somewhat 
 new ideas: viz. ( 1) legislation for but not by the masses, 
 and (2) imperialism. 
 
 As a political leader, he did not prize highly the jewel 
 of consistency. Since he had opposed the recent measure 
 of the Russell ministry for enlarging the electorate, it 
 
106 England's Progress 
 
 seems surprising that he should no sooner come into 
 power as leader of the Commons than he proposed him- 
 self a reform bill. "The truth is," he once said, "the 
 statesman is the creature of his age, the creation of his 
 times. He is essentially a practical character, and when 
 he is called upon to take office, he is not to inquire what 
 his opinions might or might not have been upon this or 
 that subject. He is only to ascertain the needful and 
 the beneficial. I laugh therefore at the objections against 
 a man that at a former period of his career he advocated 
 a policy different from his present one. All I seek to 
 ascertain is, whether his present policy be just, neces- 
 sary, expedient; whether at the present moment he is 
 prepared to serve the country according to its present 
 necessities." 2 Now while the nation had seemed apa- 
 thetic toward suffrage reform during the debates on the 
 recently defeated bill, no sooner had that bill been re- 
 jected than there suddenly sprung up a vigorous wide- 
 spread agitiation for it. Peoples' leagues and working- 
 men's associations were formed, issuing their protests 
 and resolutions; street processions, open-air mass-meet- 
 ings, floods of oratory, and monster popular demonstra- 
 tions of varying character gave publicity, and called gen- 
 eral attention to the demand. The refusal of the gov- 
 ernment to allow a big public meeting of the reformers 
 to be held in Hyde Park, London, in July, 1866, re- 
 sulted in violent disorders. The gates being closed, the 
 crowd made their entrance by tearing down long stretches 
 of the iron railings encircling it; the police were at- 
 tacked with missiles ; and later there was a good deal of 
 window smashing in this fashionable quarter. Disraeli 
 saw that the nation was bent on having a parliamentary 
 reform measure, and being fully persuaded that if the 
 
The Derby-Disraeli Ministry 107 
 
 Conservative Ministry did not give it a Liberal Ministry 
 would, he determined to have the credit of leading in 
 its enactment. He was averse to democracy; he knew 
 that his party as a whole did not desire any such reform; 
 and he probably expected, as turned out to be the case, 
 that some of his colleagues in the Cabinet would resign 
 before they would support him in such legislation; but 
 none the less, confident that franchise revision was com- 
 ing, he resolved to have the shaping of it, hoping pos- 
 sibly to quiet popular clamour by a measure less radical 
 than one passed by the Liberal Party. 
 
 His resolutions (February II, 1867) and bill 
 (March 18, 1867) were neither frank nor democratic. 
 While on their face they wore the purpose of lowering 
 and widening the franchise, and of increasing the politi- 
 cal representation and power of the labor classes, yet 
 by an ingenious system of "fancy franchises," double vot- 
 ing, checks and balances, they really offset the political 
 influence of these newly enfranchised lower classes by a 
 correspondingly enlarged influence of the higher and 
 wealthier classes. The Liberals who desired reform but 
 not of this sort, criticised the bill most fiercely. Bright 
 said it bore "upon its face the marks of deception and 
 disappointment." Gladstone called it a "gigantic instru- 
 ment of fraud." The opposition under his leadership 
 began to amend and mutilate as much as possible the 
 measure, hoping to defeat the ministry; but discovered 
 that Disraeli instead of holding firmly to the principles 
 of his bill and being ready to resign when unable to carry 
 his proposal through the House, gracefully yielded to 
 the opposition point after point, amendment after 
 amendment, declaring that he regarded the alterations 
 after all as matters not of vital import but of detail 
 
108 England's Progress 
 
 only. Before the opposition was through with its 
 changes, the bill had been all made over, becoming a 
 very democratic measure and incorporating into the elec- 
 torate a larger number of persons than had been sug- 
 gested hitherto even by the Liberal chiefs. Gladstone 
 secured 3 (i) the omission of the dual vote, (2) the 
 omission of the educational franchise, (3) the omissiop 
 of the savings bank franchise, (4) the reduction of the 
 county franchise, (5) a provision to prevent traffic in 
 votes, (6) a reduction of the residential qualification 
 for the borough vote from 2 years to 1 year, (7) the 
 introduction of a lodger franchise, (8) the abolition of 
 the proposed safeguard that the franchise of the house- 
 holder should depend on the personal payment of rates, 
 with the effect of conferring the vote on the householder 
 whether he paid the rate direct in person, or through 
 a landlord, and (9) alterations concerning voting papers, 
 redistribution of a few seats and other minor provisions. 
 As finally passed the bill gave votes in the boroughs to 
 all male householders and to all lodgers who had resided 
 in the place one year and who paid 10 pounds in rent; 
 and in the counties to all persons who owned property 
 vielding 5 pounds annual income and to all occupiers or 
 tenants paying in rent 12 pounds a year. It nearly 
 doubled the number of voters. The agricultural laborers, 
 however, were not brought into the electorate at this 
 time. Their enfranchisement came with the passage of 
 the Gladstone's Reform Bill in 1884. This measure 
 of 1867 was more of Gladstone's than of Disraeli's. 
 The Duke of Buccleuch considered the "only part due 
 to her Majesty's Government was the introductory word 
 'Whereas.' " Disraeli, had the satisfaction, however, 
 of having cleverly steered the bill through Parliament. 
 
The Derby-Disraeli Ministry 109 
 
 The Derby-Disraeli ministry had to handle several del- 
 icate questions of foreign policy. In Abyssinia the king, 
 Theodore, had imprisoned several British subjects, 
 among whom were missionaries, Bible society agents, 
 and two special envoys sent from England to treat 
 with the ruler; and, in spite of England's threat of 
 making war on his kingdom unless he soon freed the cap- 
 tives, had heedlessly continued their incarceration. 
 Theodore was a usurper who ruled in a small empire 
 filled with insurrection. He lived in a state surrounded 
 by Mohammedan and Negro powers, and as a representa- 
 tive of the Coptic Christians, he had met opposition 
 from the French Catholic missionaries. His reason for 
 seizing the Englishmen seems to have been his suspicion 
 that they were intriguing with the Moslem Turks, against 
 him. While a small relief party might have sufficed to 
 release the few prisoners, the British Government deemed 
 it best in order that England's prestige might be elevated 
 in the eyes of the East, to equip an army of 12,000 men 
 drawn in the main from the Indian forces, and to march 
 the whole of it on Magdala, the Abyssinian capital. The 
 city was 400 miles distant, across a difficult unknown 
 country, poorly watered, lacking roads and means of 
 transit, and traversed by deep ravines and mountain bar- 
 riers. The expedition under the command of Sir Robert 
 Napier, a military officer of high authority in the Bom- 
 bay presidency and a civil engineer of experience and re- 
 pute, was prudently conducted and altogether successful. 
 The army started in January, 1868, and in April the 
 fortress of Magdala was taken, the Abyssinian troops 
 having been quickly defeated by the mere baggage guard 
 of the English. The captives were discovered unharmed 
 and were released. King Theodore, humiliated and 
 
no England's Progress 
 
 frightened, in despair committed suicide. By May the 
 attacking party was sate at home again. This imperial 
 "hoisting of the standard of St. George on the moun- 
 tains of Rasselas," as Disraeli proudly spoke of it, 
 cost the nation 8,000,000 pounds. 
 
 In June, 1866, broke out the great Austro-Prussian 
 War. These countries had quarreled over the division 
 and government of the Schleswig-Holstein territory taken' 
 from Denmark in 1864. Prussia, supported by Italy 
 and having superior arms, notably the new rapid-fire 
 breech-loading "needle-gun," quickly gained a complete 
 victory. ^Yhile the Austrians whipped the Italians at 
 Custozza, and later won a naval engagement at Lissa, 
 these successes counted for little in face of the crushing 
 defeat by the Prussians at Sadowa, in which the Austrian 
 loss was 40,000 men. In less time than two months from 
 the opening of hostilities Austria sued for peace. Prus- 
 sia got the Schleswig-Holstein territory, ousted alto- 
 gether Austria from control in German affairs, and as- 
 sumed herself the leadership of North Germany, annex- 
 ing Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, Hanover, Hamburg, and the 
 Elbe Duchies, and forming a confederation destined to 
 expand soon into the powerful German Empire. In 
 this "battle of giants," as Disraeli termed the contest, 
 England maintained a strict policy of non-intervention. 
 Great Britain along with France and Russia had at- 
 tempted the role of peace-making before the disputants 
 had come to blows; but the w T ar once on the nation did 
 not interfere in the least. At its close, however, Eng- 
 land joined the Continental Powers in a Conference in 
 London. In consideration of the feelings of the French, 
 they ordered the menacing fortress of Luxemburg de- 
 stroyed, and the Prussian garrison recently placed there 
 
The Derby-Disraeli Ministry III 
 
 withdrawn; also collectively they guaranteed the neu- 
 trality of the Luxemburg territory. 
 
 The policy of non-intervention was pursued likewise 
 with reference to the military conflict in Italy in 1866 
 and in the French-Mexican affair of 1876. The Italians, 
 having just added to their state Venetia, a reward for 
 assisting Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War, were full 
 now of the desire to annex Rome, papal territory, and 
 thus make the Italian kingdom coextensive with the whole 
 Peninsula. A body of volunteers, led by the heroic Gari- 
 baldi, marched on the capital, but were repulsed by 
 French and papal troops, Napoleon III, Emperor of 
 Catholic France, having sent a part of his army to sup- 
 port the Pope. While the sympathy of England seems 
 to have been with the Italian patriots no governmental 
 favors were accorded them. And in June, 1867, when 
 Napoleon Ill's ambitious scheme for an empire in Mex- 
 ico ended in the tragic execution of the Emperor Max- 
 imilian, the French troops that supported him having to 
 be withdrawn at the threat of intervention on the part 
 of the United States and the Mexicans having taken and 
 shot him, no judgment whatever on the affair was re- 
 corded by the British Parliament. There was consider- 
 able excitement over the sad occurrence; still the Foreign 
 Secretary, Lord Stanley, was opposed to the govern- 
 ment's taking any action. He would have it remem- 
 bered "that whatever the power and influence of the 
 House might be, it was only the Parliament of the United 
 Kingdom and not of the world." 4 Disraeli justified the 
 ministry's course of abstention from interference in these 
 various conflicts as follows: "In announcing our policy 
 to be a policy of non-interference, all we mean to say is, 
 that we will not exhaust the energies nor waste the treas- 
 
H2 England's Progress 
 
 ure of this country by interfering in continental strug- 
 gles to uphold an imaginary and fallacious balance of 
 power. But because we thus announce what we call a 
 policy of non-interference, we do not mean to say that 
 we will not act when the interests and honour of England 
 require it; and because we maintain a policy of non-inter- 
 ference of the character I have described, that is no 
 reason why we should not sympathize with other nations. 
 . . . Our interest is that there should be peace in 
 Europe." 
 
 An important development within this empire in Feb- 
 ruary, 1867, was the confederation of the British North 
 American Provinces. The Canadian States united under 
 a constitution that provided for a Governor-General ap- 
 pointed by the Crown, for a Senate whose members 
 were appointed for life by the Governor-General; and 
 for a lower House elected by the people of the provinces. 
 Legal affairs were to be cared for by the provincial legis- 
 lative bodies. With the exception of having their chief 
 executive sent over by the Home Government, the Ca- 
 nadian Dominion became virtually an independent power, 
 having been given entire command of its military forces, 
 commerce, law-making and taxes. The larger freedom 
 strengthened rather than weakened the loyalty of the 
 country to Great Britain. 
 
 In the spring of 1868 the disaffected state of Ireland 
 again demanded the government's consideration. While 
 the agrarian grievances about leases, rents and evictions, 
 the resident Englishman's treatment of the Irish as a 
 social inferior, the socialistic spirit of some classes, and 
 the Fenian nationalistic activities were all causing trou- 
 bles, the special grievance was the compulsory support of 
 the Protestant Church Establishment. To meet the Irish 
 
The Derby-Disraeli Ministry 113 
 
 situation the Conservative ministry had nothing thor- 
 oughgoing or generous to propose, offering only reme- 
 dial or coercive measures of small scope for ills which they 
 would like to have considered as transitory and on the de- 
 cline. Their plans of providing a Catholic ministry, of 
 a readjustment of church property, of appointment of 
 commissions of enquiry, and of dependence on force and 
 of suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act did not meet 
 with approval from the Liberals who considered the 
 schemes insufficient, impracticable and purposefully dila- 
 tory. The opposition desired a measure that would 
 more nearly touch the root of the matter. When there- 
 fore Gladstone boldly presented a set of resolutions pro- 
 posing nothing less than the complete disestablishment 
 of the Protestant Church in Ireland, and declaring it to 
 be an Anglican anachronism and an abuse productive of 
 much ill-will for England, the Liberals as a body flocked 
 to his standard. The Irish, the Nationalists, the Radi- 
 cals, the faction of the Liberals that broke with the party 
 on the Russell Reform Bill, the Catholics and the secu- 
 larists all came to Gladstone's support. The ministry 
 opposed the resolutions on several grounds. It was 
 argued that the state endowed church "prevented gov- 
 ernment from degenerating into mere police," that the 
 state connection could promote or insure freedom in 
 religious practices and worship within the church itself; 
 that disestablishment was an attack upon property 
 rights; and that to disestablish the Irish Church would 
 lead in time to disestablishment of the Church in Eng- 
 land. Disraeli declared the crisis was in England rather 
 than in Ireland. "The purpose is now avowed," he said, 
 "and that by a powerful party, of destroying that sacred 
 union between Church and State which has hitherto been 
 
ii4 England's Progress 
 
 the chief means of our civilization and is the only se- 
 curity of our religious liberty." 5 But on April 13, Glad- 
 stone's first resolution was carried in the House by a 
 majority of 65, and with this clear defeat Disraeli had 
 either to resign or dissolve Parliament and appeal to the 
 country on the question. He chose the latter course. 
 Time was allowed at the request of the Prime Minister 
 for passing into law a few bills nearing completion, such 
 as the reform measures for Scotland and Ireland kin in 
 principle and purpose to the recently enacted English 
 electoral reform measure; and then Parliament was first 
 prorogued (July 31) , and a little later (November 1 ith) 
 was dissolved. In the general election in the fall the 
 Conservatives suffered an overwhelming defeat, the new 
 constituencies formed by the Reform Act of 1867 voting 
 generally for the Liberals who gained the big majority 
 of 112 seats. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Walford: Life and Political Career of the Earl of Beacons- 
 
 field, p. 185. 
 
 2. E. Walford: E. of B., p. 171. 
 
 3. H. W. Paul : Life of Gladstone, p. 125. 
 
 4. Bright: Growth of Democracy 1837-1880, p. 433. 
 
 5. Bright: Growth of Democracy 1 837-1 880, p. 445. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 GLADSTONE'S FIRST MINISTRY 
 
 1868-1874 
 
 Gladstone's first ministry extended over five years 
 (December, 1868, to February, 1874). Believing he 
 had been elected to power for the very purpose of paci- 
 fying Ireland, he undertook at once a settlement of the 
 Church question. The provisions of his measure in- 
 cluded ( 1 ) the severance of the union existing between 
 the churches of England and Ireland, (2) the immediate 
 disendowment of the Irish Church; that is to say, that 
 all its property, consisting of buildings, land, tithes and 
 money, valued at near 16,000,000 pounds, was to be 
 transferred to the nation, (3) the restoration of about 
 10,000,000 pounds of this wealth to the new voluntary, 
 independent church in compensation for vested interests 
 and commutations of salaries, (4) the appropriation of 
 the surplus to the support of hospitals, lunatic asylums, 
 educational^ institutions for the deaf and dumb, and like 
 agencies seeking to relieve unavoidable calamities for 
 which the Poor Law did not already provide, and (5) 
 the legal disestablishment of the Church of Ireland from 
 January 1, 1871. A grant made by the state to the 
 Catholic Training College of Maynooth and one to the 
 Presbyterians, the Regium donum, were to cease also 
 subject to compensation from the funds of the disestab- 
 ished church. 
 
 In the debates in the preceding session of Parliament 
 
 "5 
 
n6 England's Progress 
 
 it had been made clear that the Anglican Church in Ire- 
 land could not possibly lay claim to being a "National 
 Church." Only about one in ten of the population be- 
 longed to the church. In Minister and Connaught only 
 one in twenty; and in the most Protestant districts only 
 one in five. In many parishes there were no Protestants 
 at all, and in hundreds of them no Protestant church, 
 and yet tithes were being collected in those parishes for 
 the maintenance of this state church. "I myself pay 
 tithes in 8 parishes," said Mr. G. Moore in Parliament 
 in 1849; " m tne whole of these there is not one resident 
 clergyman . . . and I do not believe that divine service 
 according to the Protestant ritual has been celebrated 
 in any of them since the Reformation." 1 The non-resi- 
 dent clergymen were almost as numerous as the resident, 
 and the average salary of the former class was consid- 
 erably over eleven times the average salary of the latter 
 class. An investigation a few years earlier had shown 
 that over six and a half million of Catholics were being 
 taxed to maintain a church that served about three quar- 
 ters of a million Protestants. In 1868 the Church en- 
 joyed a revenue from tithes and lands amounting to 600,- 
 000 pounds. The forced collection of tithes from ten- 
 ants before 1838 when the tithes were converted into a 
 rent charge paid through the landlord was the cause of 
 perpetual strife. In the fights of the Irish peasantry 
 with the magistrates, soldiers, and police attempting to 
 compel the payment of the parson's dues loss of life 
 was of frequent occurrence. Sydney Smith thought that 
 to this cause "in all probability a million of lives may 
 have been sacrificed in Ireland." 2 The very existence of 
 that Church reminded the Irish of their political subju- 
 gation; it was a sign that they were a conquered people. 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 117 
 
 England certainly could not hope to gain their good will 
 before this "badge of conquest" was removed. The 
 truth but once faced the Government's obligation was 
 plain to Gladstone. His bill had no great difficulty in 
 passing the lower House but in the upper House the bill 
 was fiercely attacked. In the opinion of some of the 
 Lords it was a measure "whose political folly was only 
 equalled by its moral turpitude," u a great national sin, 
 a robbery and offence to Almighty God." Referring to 
 the necessity of every man having to render an account 
 of his deeds at the day of judgment, one bishop exclaimed, 
 "I cannot, I dare not, I must not, I will not, vote for 
 this Bill." One of the Peers would have the Queen, who 
 was not in love with the bill, believe that the Coronation 
 Oath forbade her ever giving assent to such a measure. 
 Before the bill got through the Upper House not a 
 few radical amendments and changes had been made, only 
 to be thrown out for the most part, however, by the 
 Commons when the altered bill was returned to the 
 House. Gladstone, conscious of the support of the na- 
 tion, was averse to yielding to the Lords to whom he re- 
 ferred as "men who must have been living in a balloon" 
 so ignorant were they of what the country had demanded. 
 For some days there was a hopeless dead-lock between 
 the two houses, but eventually conference effected conces- 
 sions and compromise ; and the bill, modified, but in chief 
 principles the same as when first introduced, became 
 law, receiving the royal assent July 26, 1869. The 
 resistance of the Lords gained for the new voluntary 
 Irish Church additional property amounting to 850,000 
 pounds. 
 
 Gladstone next undertook to solve the knotty Irish 
 land problem. Between the tenant and landlord classes 
 
1 1 8, England's Progress 
 
 of Ireland there existed a deep-seated, long-lived, in- 
 tense animosity, a burning hatred that for generations had 
 expressed itself now and then in the meanest acts and 
 basest crimes. On the one hand, for greed of gain, nu- 
 merous unjust evictions; sometimes a merciless wholesale 
 clearing of estates of helpless tenantry that meant dis- 
 ease and death to hundreds; and on the other hand de- 
 struction of property, killing of live stock, arson and mur- 
 der. The Irish people could not forget that the land- 
 owners as a class held land titles which had first been 
 gained through military conquest and sheer confiscation. 
 In the mind of the tenant the landlord was but a usurper; 
 more commonly than not he was an absentee. The law 
 of tenancy was peculiar. Over the greater part of Ire- 
 land the prevalent though not universal rule was that all 
 the improvements of an holding, such as ditching, fertili- 
 zation of the soil, and building of dwelling houses, barns 
 and fences were made, not as in England by the owner 
 of the land or by the owner and occupier of the land 
 jointly, but by the tenant alone, the landlord letting not 
 a farm, but simply bare unimproved land. The cost of 
 maintenance and repairs too whenever incurred fell alto- 
 gether upon the tenant. And yet at the end of the ten- 
 ancy or in case of eviction, conditions the tenant could 
 not control, the landlord got possession of everything the 
 tenant had put on the place. Now while this was law- 
 ful, it certainly was not right. 
 
 The law was founded on the theory of freedom of con- 
 tract, and took for granted what was not true — that the 
 Irish tenant was free to rent or not rent land as he 
 chose. In the eye of the law of property and accord- 
 ing to the economic doctrine of free competition, the land- 
 lord owned his land and the tenant his labor to do what 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 119 
 
 he pleased with it and to get what price he could for 
 its use. But as a matter of fact, the Irish tenant could 
 not help himself. The landowners were few and inde- 
 pendent; the tenants multitudinous in number and pov- 
 erty-stricken. The latter class owning no land and hav- 
 ing no opportunity in this industrially undeveloped coun- 
 try to make even their subsistence except by tilling the 
 soil were absolutely in the power of the former class. 
 While there were numerous exceptions, the whole coun- 
 try being considered, because in large tracts of Ireland 
 estates were rented on a fair system; still as a rule the 
 occupiers and workers of the land were mere tenants-at- 
 will, not holding leases of several years' length, but brief 
 tenures that could be terminated at a few months' notice. 
 And evictions were numerous and for every possible 
 cause. After the passage of the poor law of 1847 that 
 gave the peasant a claim to relief and furnished the owner 
 with an excuse for getting rid of him, there were in three 
 years 160,000 persons evicted. 3 In one year in a single 
 union, 15,000 persons were ejected." "In September, 
 1847, 6000 notices of ejectment were served in a single 
 union." The introduction of a new system of cultivat- 
 ing the land, the substitution of pasturage for tillage, the 
 use of machinery, the way men voted at elections, relig- 
 ious differences, racial animosities, personal differences, 
 spite, revenge, greed, the tenant's improvements have all 
 caused evictions. As early as 1845 a commission ap- 
 pointed by Peel to investigate the conditions on which 
 land in Ireland was held had reported that "Improve- 
 ments in Ireland were made by the tenants; that the land- 
 lords had appropriated them by raising the rent; and 
 that this constituted a grievance which resulted in 
 crime." 4 
 
120 England's Progress 
 
 At this time and again in 1853 a bill was introduced 
 into Parliament with the purpose of correcting these evils 
 but both were thrown out by the House of Lords. And 
 in 1858 a motion introduced in Parliament for compen- 
 sating the evicted tenant for his interest in the land was 
 opposed as being merely a "bill for transferring the prop- 
 erty of one set of persons to another of a different 
 class." Up to 1870 no remedial measure had been 
 passed. Gladstone's study of the problem led him to be- 
 lieve that its solution was to be found in Irish custom 
 rather than in English law. In the only part of Ireland 
 that was at all thrifty and prosperous there obtained, he 
 noted, the custom of leaving in undisputed possession a 
 tenant so long as he paid his rent, and also of compensat- 
 ing him for permanent improvements when surrendering 
 his holding, whether he yielded it of his own free will or 
 under compulsion. It was not the law, no written con- 
 tracts or agreements were used, but it was the habit to 
 compensate occupiers both for "disturbance" and "im- 
 provements." The outgoing tenant had the right to sell 
 to the in-coming tenant his "occupancy" and thus re- 
 ceived payment for his improvements. As much as six 
 years would be thus paid at times. The custom was not 
 in keeping with English law, for it recognized dual- 
 ownership in land. It denied to the landlord an indi- 
 vidual title to his land and recognized the tenant's right 
 in the property. But as it was a custom that was fair and 
 one that the Irish people believed in, Gladstone deter- 
 mined to give it the force of law. 
 
 The Irish tenants wanted three things — the famous 
 "Three F's" — (1) "Fixity of tenure"; that is to say, 
 undisturbed occupancy so long as rent was paid. (2) 
 "Freedom of Sale" ; that is, the tenant's liberty of selling 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 12 1 
 
 his interest, good-will and improvements. (3) "Fair 
 rents"; that is, rent determined not by independent land- 
 lords and dependent tenants, but by an impartial agent or 
 tribunal. Underlying the discontent and criminal con- 
 duct of many, no doubt, were also the hope and aim of 
 finding some way into the full independent ownership 
 of their holdings. Mr. Bright, President of the Board 
 of Trade in Gladstone's cabinet, was of the opinion that 
 only peasant proprietorship in land would allay disquiet 
 in Ireland and urged that the state should assist the ten- 
 ant in purchasing his plot of ground from the landlord. 
 In consideration of these desires Gladstone in 1875 
 introduced in the House and succeeded in having enacted 
 into law without radical amendment his first Irish Land 
 Bill. In principle it acknowledged for the first time that 
 "the Irish farmer had an estate in his holdings," 5 for 
 the "Ulster custom of tenant right, and similar customs 
 in other parts of Ireland, received the sanction of law." 
 It provided that a tenant evicted for any other reason 
 than non-payment of rent should receive compensation 
 both for disturbance of occupancy and for the value of 
 unexhausted improvements; that a scale of compensa- 
 tion for disturbance, "which varied from two to seven 
 years' rent, according to the value of the holding" was 
 to be fixed applicable to those districts in which custom 
 did not already fix what was regarded as equitable ; that 
 unless the contrary were proven by the landlord, im- 
 provements would be regarded in law as made by the 
 tenant; that nothing should be considered as an improve- 
 ment to be compensated for unless it added to the rental 
 value of the holding; that no tenant paying less annual 
 rent than 50 pounds could by contract exclude himself 
 from the benefits of the law; 6 and that a landlord could 
 
122 England's Progress 
 
 only get free of the claims of the statute by granting a 
 lease for 31 years. The occupier of the land thus be- 
 came a "joint proprietor with the landlord." The bill 
 had also purchase clauses by which provision was made 
 for state loans to tenants to be repaid in small install- 
 ments over a long tenure of years, through which aid 
 they might buy their holdings from the landlords. 
 
 The measure did not bring peace in Ireland. On the 
 contrary, so many agrarian outrages were occurring in 
 1870 and 1 87 1 that Parliament had to pass special acts 
 for preserving the peace, which laws conferred enlarged 
 powers on the police, magistrates, and lord-lieutenants, 
 in respect to the arrest, trial and imprisonment of all sus- 
 pected persons. Evictions still continued, for since the' 
 law allowed ejectment in case of non-payment of rent, 
 the landlord could still lawfully get rid of an undersir- 
 able tenant by simply advancing the rent beyond his 
 power to pay. Nor were the purchase clauses effective, 
 the landlords not caring to sell to their tenants. "Only 
 seven sales were made up to 1877." 7 But none the less, 
 the act led in the right direction. Some of the prin- 
 ciples revised and amended appeared in several later 
 Acts, e.g., Gladstone's Land Acts of 1881 and 1886 and 
 in Salisbury's Act of 1891. Through the later legisla- 
 tion Gladstone established land courts to determine what 
 was a fair rent ; secured the tenant in undisturbed posses- 
 sion so long as this "judicial" rent was paid, and pro- 
 vided that the government might advance to the tenant 
 who would buy his holdings two-thirds of the purchase 
 price, and give him forty-nine years to pay the state back 
 through annual payments equivalent to three-fourths of 
 the judicial rent. The Salisbury Act of 1891 went further 
 still and provided that the state might advance the whole 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 123 
 
 of the purchase price, to be repaid in small installments 
 as before covering a period of forty-nine years. Under 
 these acts and a later one (1903) thousands of tenants 
 have undertaken to buy plots of land. In the five years 
 after 1891 there were some 35,000 purchasers; "from 
 1903 to 1908 about 160,000." 8 
 
 One of the most important measures of this ministry 
 was the Educational Act of 1870, in chief part the work 
 of Mr. Forster, vice president of the privy council. It 
 affirmed two principles : ( 1 ) that the State was under ob- 
 ligation to provide, or to see that there were provided 
 by other agencies, the means for giving at least an ele- 
 mentary education to all its children, and (2) that it 
 had the power, when it chose to use it, to compel par- 
 ents to send their children to school. The State was to 
 be covered with good schools and the children were to be 
 gotten into them. The nation had been giving some 
 assistance to special schools for forty years. In 1870 
 it was making grants amounting in all to about 500,- 
 000 pounds. This state assistance went to the so-called 
 "voluntary" or denominational schools, which were sup- 
 ported mainly by gifts and tuition fees, and which were 
 for the most part under the control of the Church of Eng- 
 land. Among those receiving state grants, however, 
 were some Wesleyan and some Catholic schools. The 
 schools that got public aid were inspected by an 
 official of the Educational Department, and were, 
 as a rule, efficient in their work, as was true too with a 
 few maintained only by fees and private gifts. A great 
 many of the schools of the country, however, were not 
 worthy of the name, being kept by persons "who spelled 
 badly, who could scarcely write, and who could not cipher 
 at all." 9 In some the "only educational apparatus that 
 
124 England's Progress 
 
 could be seen was a Bible and a stick." And not only 
 was it true that England did not have anything like 
 enough good schools, but the children were not attend- 
 ing the schools the nation had. In many of the large 
 towns not more than one-third of the children of school 
 age were receiving instruction. In 1869 out of the 
 4,300,000 children of school 10 age in the kingdom, 1,300,- 
 000 went to schools that were inspected and efficient; 
 1,000,000 to those that were uninspected and inefficient; 
 and 2,000,000 to no school at all. The general illiteracy 
 of the people was recognized as a real menace to the 
 state, now that the suffrage had been extended. 
 
 While Mr. Forster had opponents who did not favor 
 the compulsory feature in his plan, and a few who did 
 not believe in gratuitous education, he met his chief ob- 
 stacle in trying to satisfy the demands of various parties 
 as to what religious instruction was to be given in the 
 state-supported schools. There were some who wanted 
 religion taught but did not believe that it counted for 
 much unless it included instruction in dogma and denomi- 
 national doctrine ; there were some who would have in- 
 struction in the Bible, but would exclude the catechisms; 
 and some who wanted the education to be purely secular. 
 The demand of the powerful Birmingham Education 
 League, 11 which was supported by many militant Dissen- 
 ters, was that "education should be free, compulsory and 
 secular." "Denominationalism in education' drew its 
 chief support from the Church of England party. Ear- 
 nest and long continued were the debates on the religious 
 question. The bill was introduced February 17, but it 
 was July 22 when in amended form it passed its third 
 reading in the House of Commons, and August 9th, when 
 having passed all its stages, it received the royal assent. 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 125 
 
 The measure as enacted was a compromise. It provided 
 that the country should be divided into districts, and in 
 these districts school boards should be established elected 
 by the rate-payers, and having the powers to aid or build 
 schools and to levy local taxes or rates, for school pur- 
 poses. In districts where there were sufficient schools 
 already no others were to be built, the denominational 
 or voluntary schools when submitting to state inspection 
 being aided as before only with more liberality, their 
 grants from the state being almost doubled. These de- 
 nominational schools were denied any assistance from the 
 local rates; but they were recognized as a part of and 
 incorporated into the State educational system. Their 
 support was drawn from voluntary contributions, tuition 
 fees, and state grants. In districts where more schools 
 were needed than voluntary support would supply, board- 
 schools were built to be supported by state or parliamen- 
 tary grants, by tuition fees and by local taxation. These 
 were not free schools, for parents had to pay in part 
 for their children's education. In districts and sections 
 of districts where the parents were too poor to pay tui- 
 tion fees, free board schools were to be established. As 
 to school attendance "permissive compulsion" was en- 
 trusted to the school boards; that is to say, there was 
 local option in the matter, the board of each district hav- 
 ing the power to form by-laws compelling attendance 
 or not as it saw fit. The adoption of "conscience clauses" 
 and time tables met the religious difficulty. The denomi- 
 national schools were allowed to continue to teach their 
 religious tenets ; but this religious instruction should take 
 place at a particular hour, say either at the opening or 
 closing of school day and parents who did not want their 
 children to receive this instruction were given the right of 
 
126 England's Progress 
 
 excusing their children from the services. In the board 
 schools "no catechism or other distinctive formulary 
 should be taught," but the Bible could be read and ex- 
 plained, though this must be done too at a particular 
 hour and parents were permitted if they chose so to do, 
 to withdraw their children at that time. The Act was a 
 great step in advance. The general effect of this and of 
 later Acts (1880, 1891 and 1902) of which it was the 
 basis has been practically an entire removal of illiteracy 
 in the nation. While in 1843 about one-third of the men 
 and one-half of the women were illiterate, in 1903 only 
 one-thirty-third of the women, and one-fifteenth of the 
 men were illiterate. A child of 14 that cannot read, 
 write and cipher is scarcely to be found. In 1880 the 
 attendance of children of school age under 13 was made 
 universally compulsory; and in 1891 public elementary 
 education was made free. 
 
 A radical revision of the Act of 1870 was made in 
 1902. 12 By the 1870 law the amount of the parliamen- 
 tary grants given to a school, whether a denominational 
 or a board school, was proportioned to the amount 
 raised in other ways. If the board school raised more 
 by local taxes they received larger state grants; and if 
 the denominational schools, which were not allowed aid 
 from the local rates, could raise more by voluntary sub- 
 scription, they received larger state grants. At the 
 first and for some years this arrangement worked to the 
 advantage of the denominational schools, most of which 
 were Church of England institutions well supported by 
 friends, whose gifts made it possible to secure larger 
 proportions of the state grants than board schools could 
 get by increase of local taxes. But in the long run the 
 tables were turned, for in time more could be raised by 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 127 
 
 the increase in local rates than by voluntary gifts, and 
 as a consequence the board schools got more of the state 
 grants than the denominational schools. The Church- 
 men, numerous and powerful in their political life of the 
 nation, considered it unfair that their schools should be 
 refused aid from local taxation, and by continued, vig- 
 orous agitation, they gained for themselves in 1897 an 
 additional subsidy, and in 1902 a considerable advantage 
 in the law. By the act of 1902 the school boards were 
 abolished and their powers conferred on the county and 
 town councils, the regular local government organiza- 
 tions. The denominational as well as the board schools 
 were to be supported by the local taxes, as well as by 
 the state grants. The control and direction of the schools 
 were placed by the local government councils, in the 
 hands of committees; for the board schools, a commit- 
 tee, composed of members of the county or borough coun- 
 cil and for the denominational school, a committee of six, 
 two of whom were representatives of the county or bor- 
 ough council, and four of whom were representatives of 
 the denomination. Since this arrangement for the de- 
 nominational school gave the control of money raised 
 from the public by local rates for school purposes to a 
 committee, two-thirds of whose members were usually 
 churchmen of a particular denomination, and in the great 
 majority of cases represented the Church of England, 
 there arose at once and there has remained intense hos- 
 tility to the measure from the secularists and Non-Con- 
 formists of the nation. 
 
 In 1 87 1 Oxford and Cambridge Universities were 
 emancipated from the cramping influence of sectarian- 
 ism by the passage of a bill relieving their members of 
 all religious tests. Gladstone had hitherto been opposed 
 
128 England's Progress 
 
 to repealing the law that allowed only churchmen the 
 right of sitting in convocation or holding a college fel- 
 lowship ; but feeling the growing pressure of the non-con- 
 formists after the enactment of the Educational Act, not- 
 ing the widening acceptance among the people of the 
 "principle that education should be national and unsec- 
 tarian," and seeing that his party wanted the religious 
 restrictions at the Universities removed, he changed his 
 position in 1871 and himself supported as a government 
 measure the bill of that year. The law enacted pro- 
 vided that degrees and lay university or college offices 
 should be open to all students alike, subscription to no 
 religious formulary of faith being demanded. With the 
 exception of the requirement that the Theological Faculty 
 must be all members of the state established Church, it 
 removed all religious tests for scholars, fellows, tutors 
 and professors. Clerical fellowships were still retained; 
 some of the Heads of Houses were still required to be 
 clergymen; and the Church of England was formally 
 recognized as the official religion of the Universities and 
 Colleges. 
 
 Another beneficial reform of Gladstone's first minis- 
 try was the reorganization of the army effected in 1871 
 and 1872, the work in the main of Mr. Cardwell, the 
 War Secretary. The Franco-Prussian War impressed 
 the Secretary with the necessity of England's being bet- 
 ter prepared for emergencies. The weaknesses in the 
 military system were (1) want of reserves, there not 
 being enough soldiers to provide a home army of de- 
 fence and also an army for service abroad in distant fron- 
 tiers of the Empire where small wars were of frequent 
 occurrence, (2) divided command, the national force or 
 militia and volunteers being not under the jurisdiction of 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 129 
 
 the Secretary of War and Commander-in-Chief, but under 
 the command of the Lord Lieutenants of the counties, 
 (3) the legalized purchase of promotion in rank, com- 
 missions in the army being bought and sold at regula- 
 tion prices to the advancement of the rich and to the 
 detriment of the service. This purchase system through 
 which officers bought advance in rank by paying so much 
 to seniors who would retire or get a promotion, had been 
 established by royal warrant generations before and 
 was often defended on the ground of maintaining in the 
 army "the high social standing of the officers and the 
 due influence of wealth." But such a defense was an ex- 
 cuse rather than, a reason; and since the system was 
 against merit, leaving the best soldiers if poor in the 
 lowest positions to the inefficiency of the army, the Sec- 
 retary prepared to abolish it. He calculated that the na- 
 tion would have to pay out about 7,000,000 pounds in 
 compensation to officers for their vested interests. Since 
 the officers had bought their commissions and could sell 
 them at certain values, the offices being regarded as so 
 much private property, the government with liberality 
 decided fully to reimburse the officers for their interests, 
 though the nation was thus buying from them a control 
 of its own army officers. When Mr. Cardwell's meas- 
 ure, having received the approval of the House of Com- 
 mons after considerable opposition from the friends of 
 army officers, was about blocked in the House of Lords, 
 the Prime Minister, supported by his Cabinet, advised 
 the Queen to abolish the purchase system by issuing a 
 new royal warrant which would displace the old one that 
 established and regulated the practice. The Queen saw 
 the wisdom of the step and issued the warrant: and since 
 the Lords desired the army officers to get their full com- 
 
130 England's Progress 
 
 pensation which would not happen unless the bill be- 
 came law, they now promptly but reluctantly passed the 
 measure also. Mr. Cardwell abolished also dual con- 
 trol in the army, transferring to the Crown the military 
 authority of the Lord Lieutenants of counties, and plac- 
 ing the local militia, volunteers, yeomanry with the regu^ 
 lar forces under the single control of the Commander-in- 
 Chief and War Office. In his organization of a reserve 
 force, and introduction of shorter service for recruits 
 appears the foundation of the modern English army. The 
 recruits were to enlist not for twenty years as before, but 
 for twelve only, — seven in the standing force with the 
 colors, and five with the reserve. The regular army 
 would always be composed then of younger men; it would 
 serve as a military training school ; and the reserve would 
 be an experienced force of some 40,000 or more at hand 
 to swell the army's strength when called on in case of 
 emergency. The country was divided into districts, 13 
 each of which was to have its battalion of the line, two 
 militia regiments, and local volunteers under the same 
 officer, the Lieutenant Colonel. With the intention of 
 having half the army always at home he established the 
 system of linked battalions. He divided each regiment 
 of the line into two battalions, one to be kept at home, 
 while the other was to be kept abroad, but both men and 
 officers were to be interchangeable. Valuable improve- 
 ments were also made in the commissariat department, 
 in transport provisions, and in regulations concerning 
 qualifications for obtaining commissions. 
 
 Other fruits of the reform activity of this ministry 
 were (1) the opening of the departments of the civil 
 service to public competition; (2) the repeal of the Eccle- 
 siastical Titles Act of 185 1 that forbade bishops of the 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 131 
 
 Roman Catholic Church assuming territorial titles in 
 England; (3) the Trades-Union Act, which legalized 
 unions and defined their rights and limitations; (4) the 
 Ballot Act, which introduced secret voting, and thus les- 
 sened intimidation and bribery; (5) the Judicature Act, 
 which brought the several superior Courts, such as 
 Court of Common Law and of Equity, Court of Admi- 
 ralty, Court of Bankruptcy, and Probate and Divorce 
 Court, together to form one Supreme Court of Judica- 
 ture, itself to be divided into a High Court of Justice 
 and a Court of Appeal, a centralization that rendered 
 judicial actions and procedure cheaper, simpler and more 
 equitable; (6) the Licensing Bill, which regulated the 
 hours for the closing of public-houses, or gin shops, made 
 provisions against the sale of adulterated products and 
 organized town and country licensing agencies; (7) the 
 establishment of four holidays in the year, called bank- 
 holidays, Easter Monday, Whit Monday, the day after 
 Christmas called Boxing Day, and the First Monday in 
 August; (8) a Miners' Regulation Act, which gave pro- 
 tection to men underground by requiring the certified 
 competency of managers; (9) the introduction of half- 
 penny post cards and of cheaper postal rates for news- 
 papers; (10) retrenchment in army and navy expendi- 
 tures; (11) the creation of a permanent Railway Com- 
 mission, composed of three members nominated by the 
 Crown to "decide legal disputes between the railway 
 companies and private traders." 
 
 Many ministerial bills were lost during the latter part 
 of the ministry, a notable one among them being the 
 Irish University Bill of 1873. Gladstone proposed to 
 establish a great University which should incorporate 
 in one body several educational institutions, among them 
 
132 England's Progress 
 
 the Protestant establishment Trinity College, the Roman 
 Catholic University, and the unsectarian colleges at Bel- 
 fast and Cork. The University was to be a teaching 
 as well as an examining body, an undenominational in- 
 stitution where Protestant and Catholic were to labor 
 together in harmony. There were to be no religious tests 
 whatever for professors or students in the University and 
 all honors and emoluments were to be thrown open to 
 competitors of every creed. The University was to be 
 under the control of a body of twenty-eight members ap- 
 pointed at first by Parliament but later through a system 
 that might eventually have led to Catholic control. There 
 was to be in the University neither a chair of theology nor 
 of moral philosophy, nor of modern history. These 
 subjects were to be taught only in the incorporated col- 
 leges and a professor or instructor was liable to be sus- 
 pended or deposed if in speech or in writing he willfully 
 offended the religious convictions of his pupils or other 
 members of the University. These foolish "gagging 
 clauses" were displeasing to many of the Liberals as 
 well as Conservatives; the Roman Catholics were not 
 enthusiastic over "undenominational education" ; and the 
 Irish Presbyterians were opposed to the whole project. 
 The bill was rejected, though by a close vote, 287 to 284. 
 Gladstone chose to regard this bill as a vital measure 
 and therefore tendered his resignation to the Queen. 
 But Disraeli, the Conservative leader, was unwilling to 
 try to lead in a House of Commons having so great a ma- 
 jority of Liberals. Not wishing to become prime min- 
 ister on the condition of at once dissolving Parliament for 
 a new general election, and also rightly divining that the 
 country was tired of the Liberal government and that 
 a little longer tenure would but bring it into further 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 133 
 
 discredit, he unconditionally refused to take office just 
 then and Gladstone was compelled to continue at his 
 post. 
 
 The government was fast waning in popularity. Its 
 handling of foreign affairs had been much criticized. 
 While the British public were pleased with the govern- 
 ment's observing a strict neutrality in regard to the 
 Franco-Prussian War, they did not like at all the fact that 
 at the close the Russian government was able coolly 
 to defy England by disavowing the Black Sea clauses of 
 the treaty of Paris, made 1856 at the close of the Cri- 
 mean War. By this treaty, whose guarantors were Eng- 
 land and France, Russia was forbidden to have war 
 vessels in the Euxine ; but now that France was conquered 
 and overrun by the Germans, and the Emperor Napoleon 
 III overthrown, Russia declared her intention to disre- 
 gard the engagement and build a war-fleet in these waters. 
 The affront was humiliating to English pride, but as 
 England stood alone and could ill afford to make it a 
 reason for going to war nothing could be done about it. 
 Nor was the nation pleased with the results of the gov- 
 ernment's arbitration experiences. The decisions of the 
 arbitrating boards in two disputes with America were 
 both unfavorable to England. One dispute was about 
 the possession of San Juan Island, near the coast of 
 British Columbia. The United States got the island. 
 The other controversy was concerning the claims made 
 by the United States for compensation for damage done 
 Federal interests and trade by confederate privateers 
 during the Civil War. The arbitrators in 1872 ordered 
 England to pay the United States more than 3,000,000 
 pounds. In having these controversies judicially settled 
 Gladstone won eventually a deserved and enduring title to 
 
134 England's Progress 
 
 world fame, but at the time the Prime Minister lost popu- 
 larity in England. British public opinion considered the 
 awards unfair and liked the government less on account 
 of them. The public welcomed too a rest from the cease- 
 less activity of the government in domestic legislation. 
 While Disraeli's arraignment of the Liberal Ministry, 
 when the Irish University was under discussion in 1873, 
 was bitter, unfair and exaggerated, it did reflect the truth 
 that Gladstone's reforming energy had disquieted busi- 
 ness and disturbed the conservative feeling of English- 
 men. "You have had four years of it," he said, "you have 
 despoiled churches, you have threatened every corpora- 
 tion and endowment in the country, you have examined 
 into everybody's affairs, you have criticised every pro- 
 fession, and vexed every trade, no one is certain of his 
 property, no one knows what duties he may have to per- 
 form tomorrow." 14 
 
 Conscious that his ministry was discredited, Gladstone 
 decided to seek support in a new appeal to the people, and 
 surprised everybody by suddenly announcing in January, 
 1874, a dissolution of Parliament. He promised the 
 people that if returned to power he would abolish the 
 income tax, and reorganize more equitably local taxation. 
 His appeal did not win the electorate. The masses were 
 little moved by a pledge to lower an income tax, and sev- 
 eral influential classes of voters fought him. Those 
 Churchmen who disfavored his disestablishment of the 
 Irish Church, those Dissenters who did not like the ad- 
 vantage given the Anglican Church in the Education Act, 
 the military group opposed to his army reform, the self- 
 assertive imperialists who wanted England to count for 
 more in foreign affairs, the steady-going business men and 
 conservative property holders whose profits and interests 
 
Gladstone's First Ministry 135 
 
 had been disturbed by recent legislation, and the owners 
 of the saloons and gin-shops whose trade had been in- 
 terfered with, all threw their votes against the Liberals. 
 The Conservatives won a splendid victory, gaining a ma- 
 jority of 50 in the House of Commons. According to 
 Gladstone, the defeat was due to the opposition of the 
 saloon-keepers and brewers, "to a torrent of gin and 
 beer"; according to Disraeli "to incessant and harassing 
 legislation," too much "meddling interference." 15 
 
 1 
 2 
 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 1 1 
 
 12 
 13 
 14 
 15 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Bright: Growth of Democracy 1837-1880, p. 446. 
 McCarthy: Epoch of Reform, p. 99. 
 Walpole: History of England, Vol. 5, p. 207. 
 H. Paul: History of Modern England, Vol. 3, p. 204. 
 H. Paul: History of Modern England, Vol. 3, p. 206. 
 H. Paul: History of Modern England, Vol. 3, p. 207. 
 Hazen: Europe Since 1815, p. 477. 
 Hazen: Europe Since 181 5, p. 506. 
 H. Paul: History of Modern England, Vol. 3, p. 212. 
 Hazen: Europe Since 18 15, p. 478-479. 
 Low and Sanders: Political History of England, p. 246. 
 Hazen: Europe Since 1815, 513-514. 
 Bright: Growth of Democracy 1 837-1 880, p. 471. 
 Bright: Growth of Democracy 1 837-1 880, p. 495. 
 Low and Sanders: Hunt & Poole Political History of Eng- 
 land, Vol. 12, p. 254. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 DISRAELI'S SECOND MINISTRY 
 
 1874-1880 
 
 The Conservatives were in power for six years (1874— 
 1880). Disraeli announced as the principles of the 
 party's policy: (1) the maintenance of our institutions, 
 (2) the preservation of the empire, and (3) the improve- 
 ment of the condition of the people. In keeping with 
 the third principle, the ministry early passed a few mod- 
 erate measures of benefit to farmers and artisans. They 
 enacted the Laborers' Dwelling Bill, which aimed to 
 provide better houses for the workmen of cities; a Labor 
 Law Amendment, which declared that "a combination in 
 trades-disputes to do an act not in itself punishable as 
 a crime" should no longer be liable to punishment as a 
 "conspiracy" 1 and which lessened the number of breaches 
 of contract on the part of a workman that could be 
 punished criminally; a Public Health Act, which was a 
 sort of codification of numerous health measures; a 
 land bill that simplified the processes of land exchanges 
 and of registration of titles; the Friendly Societies Bill 
 that provided for supervision of benefit associations in 
 order to secure better the funds entrusted to them by the 
 thrifty poor ; and an Agricultural Holdings Bill, by which 
 farmers might at the end of a tenancy get some return 
 for capital expended on improvements that were not yet 
 exhausted. Radical reforms were tabooed by this min- 
 istry, their motto "rest in domestic legislation" being 
 
 136 
 
Disraeli's Second Ministry, 1874-1880 137 
 
 pretty generally observed. But in foreign affairs the 
 government was decidedly active. 
 
 In 1875 the Prime Minister suddenly surprised Eng- 
 land with the wonderful news that the government had 
 purchased from the Khedive of Egypt 177,000 shares — 
 nearly half control — of the Suez Canal for the sum of 
 4,000,000 pounds. The shares were about to be taken 
 by a body of Frenchmen, when Disraeli intervened. 
 His offer by telegraph of millions of ready cash was 
 gladly accepted by the financially distressed Khedive. 
 For England, the leading naval and maritime power of 
 the world and the governor of India, the purchase was 
 a master-stroke of imperial policy. The loud praises 
 the Premier got from the press and people were deserved. 
 
 A prominent feature of Disraeli's policy was the mag- 
 nification of England's position in Asia. He favored the 
 plan of having the Prince of Wales make a tour through 
 India. A considerable sum of money having been granted 
 for the purpose, the visit was paid in the fall of 1875. 
 The royal progress throughout the country was conducted 
 on a grand scale. Costly, pompous, magnificent, it aimed 
 at impressing the princes and inhabitants of the prov- 
 inces with the strength and prestige of Great Britain, 
 and also in making clear to European powers that Eng- 
 land highly valued this Asiatic continent. It was during 
 the Prince's visit when gratifying accounts of his recep- 
 tion filled the public mind, that Disraeli, in 1876, intro- 
 duced his Royal Titles Bill, which would add to the 
 Queen's title the high-sounding phrase "Empress of 
 India." There were many who objected to the proposal; 
 some ridiculing it as cheap, barbaric trumpery; others 
 declaring that the particular word "Empress" was ex- 
 tremely distasteful to Englishmen. But Disraeli argued 
 
138 England's Progress 
 
 that precedent for such a change was set in the act of 
 Union with Ireland; that in his judgment there was ne- 
 cessity for some external mark of the position of the 
 British ruler as supreme over many sovereign princes 
 of India; that this necessity had existed ever since the 
 government of India was transferred from the East India 
 Company to the Crown in 1858; that the new title would 
 show the unanimous determination of the people of Eng- 
 land to retain connection with the Indian Empire; that 
 the Queen was empress in India in fact and should be so 
 in name; and that the Queen herself favored the change 
 in title. The bill was carried, and on New Year's Day, 
 1877, at Delhi, Calcutta, Madras and Bombay the new 
 dignity was formally and grandly proclaimed. 
 
 The Royal Titles Bill won for the Prime Minister 
 the warm friendship of his Sovereign. At the close of his 
 first ministry Victoria had offered to raise Disraeli to 
 the peerage. This honor he then declined for himself, 
 but accepted for his wife on whom was conferred the title 
 of "Viscountess Beaconsfield." In August, 1878, how- 
 ever he accepted the honor and was created "Earl of 
 Beaconsfield," passing then from the House of Commons, 
 in which he had been a prominent figure for about 40 
 years, into the House of Lords, remaining still however 
 at the head of the government. 
 
 His last speech in the Commons sounded the impe- 
 rialistic note clear and strong. Some fearful revelations 
 had just been made of the brutal methods of warfare 
 employed by the Turks against the Bulgarian Christians 
 who were revolting against Ottoman misrule. Volun- 
 teer brigands and Circassian irregulars of barbarous 
 nature had been turned loose to wreak their savage will 
 on defenseless villages. Twelve thousand persons had 
 
Disraeli's Second Ministry, 1 874-1880 139 
 
 been killed in one district; near a hundred Christian girls 
 had been seized and carried off by the vicious Turks; 
 rapes, wholesale massacres, and every heinous crime 
 appeared in the "Bulgarian Atrocities." The Conserva- 
 tive government was fiercely criticized by the Liberals, 
 because the ministry was so careful to maintain a friendly 
 attitude toward Turkey, and had at first dismissed as 
 idle rumors and exaggerations the Bulgarian reports. 
 "But," answered Disraeli, "I am sure that as long as 
 England is ruled by English parties who understand the 
 principles on which our Empire is founded, our influence 
 in that part of the world can never be looked upon with 
 indifference." . . . "Those who suppose that England 
 would ever uphold or at this moment particularly is 
 upholding Turkey from blind superstition, and from a 
 want of sympathy with the highest aspirations of hu- 
 manity, are deceived. What our duty is at this critical 
 moment is to maintain the Empire of England. Nor 
 will we ever agree to any step, though it may obtain for 
 a moment comparative quiet and a false prosperity, that 
 hazards the existence of that Empire." 2 
 
 D'Israeli believed that the safety of the Empire was 
 threatened in the East by Russia's advance on Turkey. 
 The latter country was bankrupt. It had experienced 
 several palace revolutions, two sultans being deposed 
 one after another, one of them murdered; and it had 
 been forced to fight insurrections in several of its prov- 
 inces, in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and Servia. 
 The Russians were ready to help the Greek Christians, 
 their brethren, in winning deliverance from the heavy 
 hand of the infidel Turk. Emissaries from Russia had 
 taken part in the Bosnian revolt and many thousands of 
 Russian volunteers under the command of a Russian 
 
140 England's Progress 
 
 general had come to the aid of the Servians. This inter- 
 ference in Turkish affairs was not to the liking of Eng- 
 land. The treaty of Paris made in 1856 at the end of 
 the Crimean War was pointed to wherein the Powers had 
 promised not to ''intervene in the internal affairs of 
 Turkey." But Russia would have it remembered that 
 this treaty had been made in view of the Sultan's solemn 
 vow to "improve the lot of his Christian subjects" and 
 that the promise had not been in the least observed. 
 Russia felt that, treaty or no treaty, the cause of hu- 
 manity demanded restraining the barbarous tyranny of 
 the Turk. After several vain attempts by the diplomats 
 through correspondence and exchange of notes to bring 
 the concerted action of European powers to bear in 
 effecting reforms in Turkey Russia announced her in- 
 tention of undertaking the work single-handed, and on 
 April 24, 1877, declared war on Turkey. The English 
 ministry was disposed to interpret the move as inspired 
 more by a desire for Constantinople than by a love of 
 Christianity. Russia's army took Kars, passed through 
 Roumania, crossed the Danube, was checked at Plevna 
 for a few months, then burst over the Balkan mountains 
 in the depth of winter, swept across the plains of Ru- 
 melia, captured Adrianople January 20, pressed on 
 to the very seaboard, and forced peace terms March 3, 
 1878, with their utterly discomfited foes at San Stefano 
 within a few leagues of the capital itself. The peace 
 treaty provided for: 
 
 (1) A war indemnity to Russia of 12,000,000 pounds. 
 
 (2) Accession to Russia of certain places in Asia, Kars, 
 Batoum, Ardahan, Bayazid. 
 
 (3) The independent status as states of Servia, Monte- 
 negro and Roumania. 
 
Disraeli's Second Ministry, 1874-1B80 14I 
 
 (4) The enlargement of Bulgaria, which was to be an 
 autonomous state, though tributary to the Sultan, 
 and which was to reach right down to the Aegean 
 Sea, thus including the better part of European 
 Turkey between Greece and Servia. "Fifty thou- 
 sand troops would occupy it by way of precaution 
 for two years." 3 
 
 These Russian advances were very unwelcome to Eng- 
 land. The predominance of the Muscovite in Turkey 
 was deemed a threat to her control in the Mediterranean, 
 and to her interests in Egypt and in India. The enlarge- 
 ment of Bulgaria was especially objected to since it was 
 believed that Russia intended finding through the new 
 state at some future day an outlet to the Aegean Sea. 
 England's Prime Minister made up his mind to curb 
 Russia even if the effort necessitated war. In January, 
 1878, the government asked for a supplementary grant 
 of 6,000,000 pounds for army and navy purposes, which 
 was after some debate voted. In the same month the 
 British fleet was ordered to the Dardanelles, and three 
 weeks later to Constantinople. The Mediterranean fleet 
 was strengthened by additional ships and naval and mili- 
 tary preparations were pressed ahead in dock-yard, arse- 
 nal and camp. The ministry took the ground that no one 
 nation could settle the Eastern Question without the con- 
 sent of the other European Powers and that Russia would 
 have to submit the San Stefano Treaty to the consid- 
 eration of a conference of all the Powers. Austria was 
 quite eager for such a conference, hoping some gain 
 for herself, nor was Germany averse to the plan. For 
 awhile Russia was disposed to ignore the demand, but 
 when England called out the reserves and ordered 7,000 
 native troops from India to Malta, she decided to yield. 
 
142 England's Progress 
 
 The conference met at Berlin, June 13, 1878, under the 
 presidency of Prince Bismarck. Lord Beaconsfield went 
 in person as one of the representatives from England. 
 The revised treaty provided : 4 
 
 ( 1 ) That the Bulgarian state should be cut up, two parts 
 of it, Macedonia and Eastern Rumelia, being re- 
 turned or left to Turkey. Macedonia was to be 
 under the direct rule of Turkey; Eastern Rumelia 
 was to manage its own affairs but under a governor 
 appointed by the Sultan ; and Bulgaria was to be self- 
 governed and ruled by an elected prince, approved 
 by the Sultan and the Powers, and was to have its 
 own army and fortresses. 
 
 (2) Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under Aus- 
 trian control, a reward promised by Russia for Aus- 
 trian neutrality during the war. 
 
 (3) Greece was to have Thessaly, though the Sultan 
 managed to postpone the gift for about three years. 
 
 (4) Roumania, Servia, Montenegro were recognized as 
 independent states, entirely free from Turkey. 
 
 (5) Russia was allowed to keep Ardahan, Kars, Batoum, 
 and Armenia but had to restore to Turkey Bay- 
 azid. 
 
 (6) Complete religious freedom was guaranteed all 
 Christian subjects by the Ottoman government. 
 During the conference there was announced pub- 
 licly a secret agreement only a few days old between 
 England and Turkey, which might be considered a 
 part of the general arrangements made. 
 
 (7) Turkey promised to introduce the long promised 
 reforms in government, and also allowed to Eng- 
 land the occupation of the Island of Cyprus, while 
 England in turn undertook for the future, if need 
 be by force of arms, to guarantee the integrity of 
 the Asiatic dominions of the Ottoman empire. 
 
 This radical revision of the San Stefano Treaty was 
 humiliation for Russia, glory for Britain. The Prime 
 
Disraeli's Second Ministry, 1 874-1 880 143 
 
 Minister stood forth in the eyes of the world a con- 
 queror, and was received with enthusiastic laudation on 
 returning to England, bringing as he termed it "peace 
 with honor." The event marked the high-water mark of 
 Beaconsfield's popularity and influence. In the last years 
 of his ministry his government suffered in public esteem 
 on account of disasters experienced in efforts for fron- 
 tier advances in Afghanistan and South Africa. In Zu- 
 luland six companies of the 24th regiment were sur- 
 rounded by thousands of savage warriors and every man 
 of them but six cut down. Disraeli's imperialism and 
 colonial ambition seemed dangerous and vulgar to some. 
 In January 25, 1878, Lord Carnarvon, the Colonial Sec- 
 retary, resigned from the Cabinet for just this reason. 
 
 But it was the government's recognized inability to 
 cope with the Irish malcontents that weakened it more 
 than anything else. Under the leadership of Charles 
 Stewart Parnell the Irish members of Parliament had or- 
 ganized with the purpose of obstructing as far as they 
 could all business whatsoever until consideration was 
 given their demand for Home Rule. This party was sup- 
 ported by friends in America and was backed by a well- 
 constituted land-league among the Irish people. The 
 Irish faction in the House of Commons, by making dila- 
 tory motions, delivering endless speeches, and repeatedly 
 calling for divisions blocked the ministry's bills, and suc- 
 ceeded thus in giving the nation a depreciated sense of 
 the government's strength. Then the country was suf- 
 fering from agricultural depression; harvests were poor; 
 employment was scarce; prices were low; and in Ireland 
 there was famine. Conscious of the growth of adverse 
 opinion toward his government, Lord Beaconsfield in 
 March, 1880, dissolved his Parliament, which would soon 
 
144 England's Progress 
 
 end its legal term of seven years anyway. He hoped to 
 gain in the election a new lease of power by presenting to 
 the nation the Irish demand for Home Rule as an effort 
 to break up the Empire and by intimating that his politi- 
 cal opponents, the Liberals, were not out of sympathy 
 with this sort of a programme. In his address to the elec- 
 tors, he "warned the country that a danger in its ulti- 
 mate results scarcely less disastrous than pestilence and 
 famine, distracted Ireland; a portion of its population 
 was endeavoring to sever the constitutional tie that united 
 it to Great Britain. . . . It is to be hoped that all men of 
 light and leading will resist this destructive doctrine 
 . . . and yet there are some who challenge the expediency 
 of the imperial character of this realm !" 5 Gladstone 
 replied to these "dark allusions" that "those who endan- 
 gered the union with Ireland were the party that main- 
 tained there an alien church, an unjust land-law, and fran- 
 chises inferior to our own: and that the true supporters 
 of the union are those who firmly uphold the supreme 
 authority of Parliament, but exercise that authority to 
 bind the three nations by the indissoluble tie of liberal 
 and equal laws." Gladstone was in his seventy-first year. 
 None the less the veteran statesman fiercely waged battle 
 addressing day after day in his famous Midlothian Cam- 
 paign vast concourses of people and stirring to its depths 
 the thought of the nation, The Liberals swept the coun- 
 try; 349 of them being sent to Parliament as against 243 
 Conservatives, and 60 Home Rulers. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Bright: Growth of Democracy 1837-1880, p. 515. 
 
 2. Bright: Growth of Democracy, 1 837-1 880, p. 552. 
 
 3. Paul: Modern History, Vol. 4, p. 45. 
 
 4. Low and Sanders, p. 291. 
 
 5. Morley: Life of Gladstone, Vol. 2, p. 160. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 GLADSTONE'S SECOND MINISTRY 
 
 1880-1885 
 
 Gladstone's second administration (April, 18 80- June, 
 1885) differed from his first in that external and mili- 
 tary rather than domestic affairs occupied chiefly the gov- 
 ernment's attention. As to home reforms, the minis- 
 try's work, though important, may be told with brevity. 
 Artisans received benefit from an employers' liability act 
 which increased the responsibility of the employer in 
 cases of accident; the tenants were pleased with a new 
 law that gave them equal privilege with the landlord in 
 killing game that injured their crops; an old Non-Con- 
 formist controversy was brought to a just end by the pas- 
 sage of a burial bill which first gave Dissenters equal 
 right with Churchmen in the interment of their dead in 
 the church cemetery, burials being authorized "either 
 without religious service or with such Christian and or- 
 derly service as the person responsible might think fit" 1 ; 
 a married woman's property bill was passed which gave 
 married women a legal equality with men as regards their 
 incomes and what they made or inherited; and bene- 
 ficial acts were passed for the prevention of bribery and 
 corrupt methods at elections; for administering the es- 
 tates of bankrupts; and for giving to outgoing tenants 
 fair compensation for improvements of a permanent 
 character made by them on their holdings. The Third 
 Reform Act (1884) and the Redistribution of Seats Act 
 (1885) were important and natural complements of the 
 
 14s 
 
146 England's Progress 
 
 Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867. The Act of 1884 gave 
 the ballot to the better class of agricultural laborers in 
 the counties, increasing the electorate by two and a half 
 million voters, and established a uniform householder 
 and a uniform lodger franchise over the whole nation. 
 The Redistribution Act made parliamentary representa- 
 tion less unequal by taking one hundred and sixty seats 
 from the smaller boroughs and distributing these among 
 the more populous counties and towns, and by forming a 
 number of single member districts. 
 
 The ministry's external troubles were numerous and 
 difficult. Rebellion occurred in the Transvaal, South 
 Africa; civil strife and disorder appeared in Egypt; re- 
 ligious fanatics spread warfare in the Soudan; delicate 
 questions of foreign policy arose in dealing with Russia; 
 and across St. George's Channel there was again turmoil 
 and crime. The South African difficulty was a direct out- 
 come of the imperialistic policy of the Beaconsfield min- 
 istry. In 1877 that government had decreed that the 
 young republic of the Dutch beyond the Vaal River, 
 formed mainly of farmers and peasants ("Boers") 
 should be annexed to the British empire. The step was 
 not approved by a considerable proportion of the English 
 people, and was bitterly opposed by practically all the 
 Dutch. The Transvaal state had come into being in an 
 effort of the Boers to escape English control. On three 
 separate occasions in 1836, 1842 and in 1848, communi- 
 ties of the Dutch with their cattle, slaves, farm imple- 
 ments and other belongings had trekked out of a colony 
 where British rule was becoming strong and was interfer- 
 ing with their customs and institutions (such for example 
 as the holding of slaves), and had migrated farther into 
 the interior, hoping to build a state of their own and to 
 
Gladstone's Second Ministry, 1880-188 5 147 
 
 lead a life altogether unmolested by English intruders. 
 The Dutch had migrated from Cape Colony to Natal, 
 then from Natal to the Orange River country, and fin- 
 ally from the Orange River country to the Transvaal 
 region, only to find themselves every time overtaken by 
 the English. The reason given in 1877 for the annexa- 
 tion of the republic was that the Boers engaged in fre- 
 quent border wars with native tribes, and that these wars 
 tended to incite hostile feeling and attacks from the 
 African tribes against neighboring English colonies. In- 
 dependence for the Boers was declared to mean inse- 
 curity for other British colonists. The annexation was 
 regarded by the Dutch as a high-handed outrage, nor 
 was their hatred of the act lessened by the equivocal and 
 unflattering promise of being given "the fullest legislative 
 privileges compatible with the circumstances of the coun- 
 try and the intelligence of the people." Seven thousand 
 out of the eight thousand qualified electors of the republic 
 signed a petition asking the English government for a 
 restoration of their independence. But their appeal was 
 of no avail with the Conservative ministry. In 1879 and 
 again in the spring of 1880, as the administration drew 
 to its close the Boers were given to understand that "The 
 Transvaal territory should continue forever to be an in- 
 tegral part of the Queen's dominions in South Africa," 2 
 that "the Vaal river would flow backwards through the 
 Drakensberg sooner than the British would be withdrawn 
 from the Transvaal." 
 
 The change of ministry in 1880 gave to the Boers new 
 hope. They knew that the Liberal party was opposed to 
 Beaconsfield's extreme imperial policy, and that the new 
 Prime Minister did not sanction the method employed in 
 acquiring the Transvaal, having referred to it during the 
 
148 England's Progress 
 
 electoral campaign as having "been obtained by means dis- 
 honorable to the character of the country." But how- 
 ever much the Prime Minister may have sympathized 
 with the Boers and appreciated the justness of their 
 claim, he found on entering office that the facts of the 
 situation at that time made it very unwise if not impos- 
 sible to attempt then the repeal of annexation. British 
 Commissioners and agents were sending in reports de- 
 claring that there were good signs appearing of acquies- 
 cence to the British rule on the part of some of the Dutch 
 and that a strong but free government would insure a 
 reign of peace and order that would soon win over to it 
 the majority of the rest. Obligations too had been en- 
 tered into with the natives that could not be ignored. 
 Civil strife and anarchy seemed possible if the English 
 immediately withdrew since the government by the Dutch 
 country folk was detested by the European diggers and 
 settlers in the newly-formed towns about the mining cen- 
 ters. There was a plan on foot too for building up a 
 confederation of states in South Africa, and advances 
 had been made by official agents that called for further 
 support. Gladstone hated to disappoint the Dutch, but 
 was forced by events to continue the work of his prede- 
 cessor in office. He told the Boers that the Queen's sov- 
 ereignty over the Transvaal would be maintained but that 
 the ministry desired them to have the very fullest liberty 
 in managing their local affairs; and that he believed such 
 liberty could be most easily and promptly conceded to 
 the Transvaal as a state in a South African confedera- 
 tion. 
 
 But to be a member of such a federation was not the 
 desire of the Dutch, and as to promises of a larger meas- 
 ure of local self-government being bestowed, they were 
 
Gladstone's Second Ministry, 1880-1885 149 
 
 tired of promises. After a great public assembly had 
 proclaimed for a republic and a new government had 
 been set up and flag raised (December, 1880) they be- 
 gan military attacks on British outposts. Several small 
 garrisons were overcome and at Majuba Hill, Febru- 
 ary 27, 1 88 1, they came near annihilating a British force 
 of 359 seasoned soldiers. The English lost in killed, 
 wounded and captured 288 men, the commander Colley 
 being numbered among the dead. The Boers did not 
 lose a man. 
 
 This disastrous defeat first fully aroused public opin- 
 ion in England to the seriousness of the Transvaal re- 
 sistance. Revenge became the popular cry, and rein- 
 forcements were sent to the front. But strange to say, 
 just as all England was listening to hear of some de- 
 cisive military operation on a big scale, the surprising 
 news came that the Prime Minister was planning to with- 
 draw the garrisons and to concede to the wishes of the 
 Boers. 
 
 Gladstone's move was unpopular and required moral 
 courage. To withdraw just after a defeat would be con- 
 sidered a confession of weakness. But peace negotiations 
 had been set on foot by him and a policy of conciliation 
 and friendly settlement had been deliberately adopted 
 and begun before Colley unfortunately occupied Majuba 
 Hill. Because a military blunder quite disastrous to the 
 English had been made, Gladstone could not see that he 
 should reverse his peace policy already adopted and 
 recommend revengeful warfare. To do that would be 
 to incur blood-guiltiness. So in spite of fierce criticism 
 from many in Parliament, in military circles and in the 
 nation, he carried to a conclusion his settlement. The 
 Pretoria Convention, concluded August, 1881, recognized 
 
the Boers' government as a quasi-independent state with 
 specific reservations and under the suzerainty oi the 
 Queen, Three years later the- Boers succeeded in hav- 
 ing modified the Pretoria agreement. By the 1 ondoil 
 Convention (1884) the old title South African Republic 
 was restored and the word suzerainty was removed from 
 the preamble of the agreement, Favoring the British) 
 however, was inserted a provision which later at the 
 opening of the great Boer War the Hutch heard a good 
 deal about, vi/. "for white men to have full liberty, to 
 reside in any part oi the republic, to trade in it, M\d to 
 be liable to the same taxes only as those exacted from 
 citizens of the republic." - : The settlement gave entire 
 
 freedom to the Boers in internal government, but re- 
 served for England control over their foreign affairs. 
 As to where complete sovereignty was lodged the agree- 
 ment was vague and just here lay tuture trouble. 
 
 The Soudanese entanglement A\\d disaster grew out 
 of England's interests in Egypt, Since D' Israeli in iS 5 
 bought the bankrupt Khedive's shares in the Sue/ Canal, 
 there had followed a steadily increasing control by Eng- 
 land in Egyptian affairs, The chronic state oi indebted- 
 ness oi the government had been accompanied by great 
 and repeated loans, especially from England .\nd France, 
 and from 1S70 to 1 S S ; these two countries exercised for 
 the protection oi creditors and investors .1 Dual Control 
 Over the financial administration oi Egypt, In the lat- 
 ter part of iSS: native hostility to foreign interference 
 culminated in a rebellion of subjects against the Khedive 
 Tewfik and his foreign advisers, led by an ambitious 
 colonel in the Kgyptian army. Arabi Pasha, whose popu- 
 lar slogan was "Kgypt for the Fgyptiaus." The Pasha 
 pressed the Khedive SO hard that foreign military forces 
 
Gladstone's Scr.ond Ministry, 1880-1885 151 
 
 had to be brought in for bii defense. France balked at 
 military intervention, but England went in; and thill sin- 
 gle-handed d for herself a permanent su- 
 premacy. Alexandria was bombarded by an English 
 t. A British army was tent over under the command 
 of Lord vVolseley gaining a victory over Arabi at Tcl-el- 
 
 Kehir; a cavalry force took the capital Cairo ''Septem- 
 ber [4, [882), and Arabi himself and main supporters 
 were captured and banished. With the collapse of the 
 rebellion the army of occupation did not withdraw, but 
 remained for the purpose of assisting in "preserving the 
 public tranquillity.' J his assistance soon came to mean 
 actual direction of afiairs, for the governors of Egypt 
 were compelled to adopt the policies advised by the Eng- 
 lish resident counsellors. 
 
 Egypt, though unable to maintain a stable govern- 
 ment for herself was none the less vainly undertaking to 
 subjugate and rule the wild Soudanese territory of the 
 Upper Nile basin, employing arbitrary, selfish and op- 
 pressive methods of misrule. The Gladstone ministry 
 had eventually to interfere in that quarter; but it did so 
 witli decided reluctance. Gladstone declared "I look 
 upon the possession of the Soudan as the calamity of 
 pt. It has been a drain on her treasury, it has been 
 a drain on her men. It is estimated that 100,000 /Egyp- 
 tians have laid down their lives in endeavoring to main- 
 tain that barren conquest." 1 Not a jingoist, and ques- 
 tioning the justice and wisdom of Egypt*! control in the 
 Soudan, he was unwilling to give it military support. 
 No imperialist, he did not desire to make war on the 
 Soudanese to win their lands for England. The insur- 
 rections there were in his mind justified by the atrocities 
 and oppressions of the Egyptian pashas and were con- 
 
152 England's Progress 
 
 sidered but the restless movements of "peoples rightly 
 struggling to be free." He accepted British responsi- 
 bility for good government in Egypt, but did not admit 
 that this political relationship carried with it the duty 
 of undertaking to rule the Soudan. Should he intervene, 
 it would be to get Egypt to abandon the Soudan, to recall 
 her governor, to withdraw her garrisons, and to leave 
 the waste country in the hands of its native tribes. In 
 1884 Gladstone undertook to carry out an "abandon- 
 ment policy." The man sent to effect evacuation was 
 General Charles Gordon. The man had had consider- 
 able experience and success in governing orientals, had 
 won world-fame as a leader of the Ever- Victorious Army 
 in suppressing the formidable Tae-Ping rebellion against 
 the Chinese government in 1864, had been Egypt's gov- 
 ernor-general of the Soudan in 1877, na d there laifl a 
 heavy hand on the slave dealers, and was justly recog- 
 nized as a friend of the weak and wronged. 
 
 Difficult and peculiar was his task. The Soudanese 
 rebellion, started about 1881, was fired by both the politi- 
 cal and religious spirit. In this year Mohammed Ahmed, 
 a fanatical native of the Upper Nile country, had pro- 
 claimed himself the heaven-sent Messiah, the prophet 
 whom the Moslems teach would appear just before the 
 Judgment Day. He had declared his mission to be to 
 harry out of the land the people's oppressors, the wicked 
 and the unbelieving, and win the world to his faith and 
 God. Self-confident, able and eloquent the prophet had 
 soon gathered under his leadership most of the wild 
 and excitable tribes of the Soudan, and was directing with 
 skill their united strength in throwing off the hated yoke 
 of Egyptian rule. The fanatical "dervishes" had suc- 
 ceeded in forcing into their fortresses the Egyptian troops 
 
Gladstone's Second Ministry, 1 880-1 885 153 
 
 stationed in various parts of the country, and their steady 
 advances had not been checked by the special military 
 force despatched from Khartoum by the government of 
 the Khedive. General Hicks, an Indian officer, sent out 
 by Egypt in 1883 in command of a native army had been 
 entrapped, and his whole host cut to pieces. 
 
 Gordon seemed a good man to tackle the Mahdi. His 
 personal magnetism, remarkable achievements, his influ- 
 ence over others, his contempt for money, his abounding 
 self-confidence and sublime faith had stirred the imagina- 
 tion of the English people and made him seem to some 
 the inspired heaven-directed leader; just the right com- 
 mander to be pitted against the Soudanese prophet. He 
 was given the widest discretionary powers as to the 
 methods to employ, but was expected to undertake not 
 a policy of conquest and rule, but of withdrawal: nor 
 was he to count upon the sending of a military force 
 from England to carry out his plan. But Gordon did 
 not, probably could not, keep on a straight course. Hav- 
 ing gotten himself appointed Governor-General of the 
 Soudan by the Khedive at Cairo, he began soon to move 
 in the direction of establishing settled order in the coun- 
 try, hoping to reinstate the best representatives of the 
 old rulers; but these could not be found. Arrived at 
 Khartoum, though welcomed by its people as the great 
 deliverer, he did not find, as some of the Arabs who 
 had in former years served under him prophesied, "that 
 the Mahdi's hordes will melt away like dew, and the 
 Pretender will be left like a small man standing alone, 
 until he is forced to flee back to his island of Abbas." 5 
 On the contrary in answer to Gordon's messages of peace 
 were sent insolent words, "calling upon Gordon to be- 
 come a Mussulman, and to come and serve the Mahdi." 
 
154 England's Progress 
 
 Already company after company sent against the prophet 
 had been destroyed. As city and stronghold fell 
 before the attack of "The Expected One," who claimed 
 "he was immortal and would never die" and who was 
 set upon killing every one not acknowledging his author- 
 ity, the terrified Soudanese flocked in tribes to his stand- 
 ard. Gordon became convinced that there was no hope 
 for the Soudan so long as the Mahdi had sway; so 
 changed his program and now proclaimed his plan to 
 "smash up" this prophet; and to that end began calling 
 for the despatch of a British army. Strange to relate, 
 he asked also that there should be sent him from Cairo 
 Zobeir Pasha. This fellow, though an able fighter and 
 capable political chief, was a prisoner who had been in 
 large part responsible for the abominable slave traffic of 
 the decade past and had been deported for that reason 
 to Cairo. His son had been executed by Gordon when 
 formerly in authority in the Soudan. He was believed 
 to have been in sympathy with the Mahdi at the first, 
 and was regarded as the enemy of both Egypt and Eng- 
 land. Gordon claimed to have a "mystical feeling that 
 after all Zobeir would be his friend" and he believed 
 that if this powerful, much-feared master were put in 
 authority over a sort of buffer state between Egypt and 
 Mahdi, and given England's moral support, he would 
 "run straight" because at Cairo Zobeir had learned of 
 England's power. Gordon had said that unless the man 
 were sent "there was no chance of getting the garrisons 
 away" ; but none the less, Cabinet, Parliament and peo- 
 ple in England would not stand for Zobeir, the ex-slaver, 
 and this request of Gordon's was refused. As to send- 
 ing British troops, there was much hesitation and long 
 debate before such responsibility would be assumed. 
 
Gladstone's Second Ministry, 1880-188 5 155 
 
 Gordon and a garrison of 11,000 men were shut up in 
 Khartoum by the Mahdists in February, 1884, and 
 though the nation clamored vigorously all through the 
 spring and summer for an expedition to be sent for the 
 relief of Gordon, it was not until August that the min- 
 istry, consenting to the plan, asked the House of Com- 
 mons for a vote of credit. It was September before the 
 final preparations for the expedition were made. An un- 
 willing body of 10,000 men under the command of Lord 
 Wolseley then started for Khartoum by the Nile route, 
 but there were so many unknown obstacles to encounter 
 it was January before any of the forces got within a 
 hundred miles of Khartoum. On several occasions the 
 British had to fight back the dervishes, but finally on 
 January 28, 1885, a small force, numbering only 26 Brit- 
 ish and 240 Soudanese who had boarded 2 small bullet- 
 proof steamers sent down by Gordon to meet the desert 
 column at Gubat, came in sight of the besieged capital. 
 Over it waved, however, no longer the Egyptian flag. 
 Two days before, the dervishes had assaulted and taken 
 Khartoum. Gordon had been hacked to pieces, the starv- 
 ing population massacred, and the city given over to pil- 
 lage. And yet three whole days had been spent at 
 Gubat in merely reconnoitering and making an exchange 
 of troops! 
 
 When the news of the awful calamity reached Eng- 
 land consternation and anger seized the people. They 
 were incensed beyond measure with the government, so 
 halting and dilatory its action had been. The incident 
 was referred to as "the betrayal of Gordon." The Queen 
 openly expressed her displeasure and the ministry es- 
 caped censure in the House of Commons by only 14 
 votes. The government hardly survived the blow. 
 
156 England^ Progress 
 
 For eleven years the Soudan was abandoned by Eng- 
 land, all military forces having been withdrawn and the 
 country left in control of the natives. But in 1896 its 
 reconquest was undertaken. An Egyptian army carefully 
 disciplined and prepared by English officers and under the. 
 command of British generals headed by Sir Herbert Kit- 
 chener, marched into the Middle Nile valley, drove the 
 dervishes from the Dongola province, won victories at 
 Ferker, Abu-Hamed, Atbara and Omdurman, in the 
 latter of which battles 50,000 of the enemy were engaged, 
 11,000 of them killed and 16,000 wounded; reoccupied 
 Khartoum, and having utterly annihilated the native Kha- 
 lifa's power, raised over the Soudan the standard of both 
 Egypt and England. Thus the bounds of British con- 
 trol were extended in Africa and the murder of Gordon 
 had been avenged. 
 
 After the Soudanese embroilment Gladstone was al- 
 most brought into war with Russia because of the unwar- 
 ranted advance of that country on Afghan territory, a 
 buffer state between Russia and India. A Russian army 
 had advancd into Afghan, whipped the Ameer's forces 
 and annexed the valley of Penjdeh. To oppose the 
 further advance Gladstone had no difficulty in getting 
 from Parliament a vote of credit of 4,000,000 pounds 
 for the army and 2,500,000 pounds for the navy; and 
 later for frontier defense, 5,000,000 pounds. The Indian 
 government began too a mobilization of troops and 
 showed readiness to send to the front if needed 50,000 
 men. Conflict was avoided however by conciliatory tac- 
 tics,^ — by discussing the possibility of arbitrating the mat- 
 ter, and by instituting a provisional arrangement for neu- 
 tralizing the territory until a boundary commission could 
 be appointed and could determine by investigation the 
 
Gladstone's Second Ministry, 1880-188 5 157 
 
 rights of ownership. The frontier boundary line be- 
 tween the Oxus and the Hari-Reed was marked out in 
 1887. 
 
 To allay trouble in Ireland Gladstone employed, but 
 without much success, economic and disciplinary meas- 
 ures. In 1880 he passed a bill making a "distinction be- 
 tween those who would not pay rent and those who could 
 not on account of bad harvests," and that allowed no 
 eviction of tenants unless the landlord paid "compensa- 
 tion for disturbance." In 1881 he passed a land bill, 
 that established a land court through which a fair or 
 "judicial rent" might be fixed in case of dispute, and that 
 acted in general favorably to the tenant, reducing some 
 excessive rents as much as a third or a half. These laws 
 were denounced by prominent Liberals as well as by 
 Conservatives as "demoralizing and dishonest, as a first 
 step to social war." They caused some resignations from 
 the ministry. Nor did the laws please the Irish people 
 who hoped at some time to get rid of absentee land- 
 lords altogether, and to gain nationality for their coun- 
 try. Charles Stewart Parnell, the shrewd, cynical, deter- 
 mined leader of the Home Rulers, declared the land acts 
 shameful and urged the farmers not to make use of the 
 land courts until certain test cases had been made. As 
 head of a national land league, termed by Mr. Forster, 
 the Secretary for Ireland, an "illegal and criminal organi- 
 zation," Parnell with his followers certainly winked at, if 
 they did not encourage, all manner of agrarian crimes. 
 Those who unjustly evicted tenants, those who dared to 
 take their vacated tenancies, and those who refused to 
 follow the league's advice or orders as to settlement 
 of annual rents and rents in arrears, were apt to suffer 
 punishment. Threats to kill sent through the post, the 
 
158 England's Progress 
 
 throwing of bombs and explosives, killing of live-stock, 
 arson, shooting into houses, boycotting, murders, formed 
 a veritable reign of terror. Agrarian crimes had arisen 
 from 863 in 1879 t0 2 5^9 * n 1880, and evictions rose 
 from 6239 in 1879 to 10,457 m 1880. In the fourth 
 quarter of 1881 there were 732 outrages of which 42 
 were either murders or attempts at murder. And this 
 too notwithstanding the fact that a Protection of Property 
 Bill and an Arms Bill, giving special powers to the lord- 
 Keutenant for deterring and punishing criminals had 
 been passed. Exercising this extraordinary power, Fors- 
 ter had Parnell and a half dozen of his chief supporters 
 arrested and imprisoned in Kilmainham jail as men 
 "guilty of treasonable practices" "not ashamed to preach 
 the gospel of public plunder." But this move did not 
 destroy Parnell's influence. On the contrary, the Irish 
 people, regarding him as illegally incarcerated, without 
 just cause or regular trial, were ready to follow the 
 league's "No Rent Manifesto" which the imprisoned 
 Parnell inspired and endorsed, advising tenants to pay 
 not a penny of rent until the government freed and 
 treated with fairness their leaders. Outrageous agra- 
 rian crimes multiplied again all over the South and West 
 of Ireland. 
 
 Gladstone hated to employ coercive measures, and 
 having learned that Forster had been told by an emissary 
 of Parnell's who had visited him in jail, that in case of 
 Parnell's release, the Irish leader would do all in his 
 power to stop boycotting, intimidation and outrages of 
 every sort, the Prime Minister decided to make a new 
 departure and try the effect of kinder methods, freeing 
 Parnell, his confederates, and "all suspects not associated 
 with the commission of crime." Forster, Secretary for 
 
Gladstone's Second Ministry, 1880-188 5 159 
 
 Ireland, disapproved of this bargaining with criminals, 
 and resigned office. In his place Gladstone put Lord 
 Frederick Cavendish, a devoted friend and adherent who 
 was the husband of a niece of Mrs. Gladstone and who 
 had worked out a financial plan for a new land purchase 
 scheme for Ireland. But Cavendish had been in Ireland 
 only a few days when he and his under-secretary, Mr. 
 Burke, were foully murdered by assassins in Phoenix 
 Park, Dublin, in broad daylight. The horrible crime 
 was the act of a body of conspirators called the Invin- 
 cibles. Gladstone was constrained against his preference 
 to abandon his policy of conciliation and to employ dras- 
 tic coercive measures. A special tribunal of three judges 
 was created for trying cases of treason, murder and seri- 
 ous crime, which sat without juries; the right of public as- 
 sembly was restricted, certain newspapers were sup- 
 pressed, extra police furnished, arbitrary arrests allowed, 
 and the police given the right to search houses day or 
 night for the discovery of apparatus of crime. A vig- 
 orous enforcement of this Crimes Act by Mr. Trevelyan, 
 the new Secretary for Ireland, and by Lord Spencer, the 
 new Viceroy, brought about for a short time a more quiet 
 state of affairs. They unearthed several dastardly at- 
 tempts to use explosives to frighten the government, and 
 arrested and hanged some of the Dublin murderers and 
 ring-leaders in crime. But while sedition and crime were 
 suppressed for a while, it became evident that no enforce- 
 ment act would solve the Irish problem. The Irish 
 would not endure the thought of having over themselves 
 a special system of criminal laws and soon serious dis- 
 orders were again rife. 
 
 The Irish Nationalists were bitterly angered at the 
 ministry's coercive policy. Led by Parnell this parlia- 
 
160 England's Progress 
 
 mentary group, numbering thirty-nine, leagued with the 
 Conservatives and representatives of the brewers and 
 saloon-keepers and defeated the administration on the 
 liquor tax June 8, 1885. Gladstone forthwith resigned 
 office to Lord Salisbury, the Conservative leader. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Low and Sanders: Political History of England, Vol. 12, 
 
 P- 323. 
 
 2. Morley: Life of Gladstone, Vol. 2, p. 266. 
 
 3. Morley: Life of Gladstone, Vol. 2, p. 285. 
 
 4. Morley: Life of Gladstone, Vol. 2, p. 385. 
 
 5. Lang: Life of Gordon, p. 106. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SALISBURY'S FIRST MINISTRY, 1885-1886, AND 
 
 GLADSTONE'S THIRD MINISTRY, 
 
 FEBRUARY-JULY, 1886 
 
 In Salisbury's brief ministry, June 24, 1885, to Feb- 
 ruary, 1886, the Irish and Conservative parties drew to- 
 gether temporarily. Lord Carnarvon, the newly ap- 
 pointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, expressed himself as 
 not unfavorable to the Irish having a greater local au- 
 tonomy. He expressed the intention of dropping the 
 hated Crimes Act of his predecessor in office, and ex- 
 pected "Englishmen, Scotsmen and Irishmen to live to- 
 gether harmoniously in the United Kingdom as they did 
 in the British colonies." Salisbury was thought to have 
 had the Home Rule question in mind when making the 
 following statement in a public address: "In a large cen- 
 tral authority the wisdom of several parts of the coun- 
 try will correct the folly and mistake of one. In a local 
 authority that correction is to a much greater extent want- 
 ing, and it would be impossible to leave that out of sight 
 in any extension of local authority in Ireland." l 
 
 In the general election held in November when the new 
 franchise and redistribution of seats bill of 1884 first 
 became operative the Parnellites heartily supported the 
 Conservatives. No part of Ireland returned a single 
 Liberal to Parliament. The cities and towns of England 
 too mainly went Conservative. Gladstone's blunders in 
 Egypt and the Soudan, fears as to his views on dises- 
 
 161 
 
1 62 England's Progress 
 
 tablishment of the English Church, and his policy of 
 taxing more heavily the brewers told heavily against the 
 Liberal candidates. But the agricultural laborers 
 grateful for the new enfranchisement law turned out in 
 full force and sent up enough Liberals to give Glad- 
 stone's party a total majority in Parliament of 85 over 
 the Conservatives, Parnell brought with him this time 
 85 followers, and with their votes he was able exactly 
 to offset or cancel the Liberal majority. The exact re- 
 turns of the election were 335 Liberals, 249 Conserva- 
 tives, and 86 Irish Nationalists. Thus the balance of 
 power lay in the hands of the Home Rulers. 
 
 But doomed to speedy disappointment were the ex- 
 pectations of the Irish group. No sooner had the new 
 Parliament met (January 12, 1886) than the an- 
 nouncement was made of the resignation of the amiable 
 Lord Carnarvon. In the Queen's speech occurred the 
 statement: "I have seen with deep sorrow the renewal 
 since I last addressed you of the attempts to excite the 
 people of Ireland to hostility against the legislative union 
 between that country and Great Britain. I am reso- 
 lutely opposed to any disturbance of that fundamental 
 law." And the Chief Secretary to Ireland announced 
 after a two days' visit to Dublin that a new Coercion Bill 
 was to be at once introduced in Parliament, "dealing with 
 the national league, intimidation, and the protection of 
 life, property and public order." The friendly expres- 
 sions of opinion concerning a freer Ireland made by a 
 few Conservative leaders before and during a general 
 election did not square well with the governmental policy 
 of the Conservative ministry now in office. Disappointed 
 and resentful Parnell turned again. He knew that Glad- 
 stone had lost faith in all efforts to quiet Ireland by coer- 
 
Salisbury's First and Gladstone's Third Ministry 163 
 
 cive methods, that he regarded the Irish question as para- 
 mount to all other questions, that he had vainly sought 
 to get the Conservatives to co-operate with the Liberals 
 in finding a solution of the Irish problem, and that he 
 personally favored some form of home rule. The Irish 
 leader reached the conclusion that he could get more for 
 Ireland from the Liberals than from the Conservatives, 
 and in consequence he now mustered his forces to Glad- 
 stone's side and had the pleasure of seeing the Salisbury 
 ministry defeated. On the 27th of January the vote of 
 censure in the form of an amendment to the Queen's ad- 
 dress expressing "regret" at the omission of a minor allot- 
 ment measure in the interest of the agricultural classes 
 was passed and the Salisbury ministry was retired, plac- 
 ing Gladstone in power for the third time. 
 
 The veteran statesman, now 76 years of age, decided 
 to undertake the laborious, heroic task of forming for 
 Ireland a full-ordered system of self-government. This 
 too notwithstanding the fact that in the general election 
 just had Home Rule had not been the leading issue. He 
 knew too he would encounter the bitterest opposition of 
 influential classes in England and in the Protestant prov- 
 ince of Ulster. Against him were the Conservative 
 party, the Peers, the Queen, and several of the foremost 
 men of his own party. Among his former ministerial 
 colleagues and men of weight who would not follow him 
 were Lord Hartington, the leader of the moderate Lib- 
 erals; John Bright, a man of influence with the Non-Con- 
 formists; Trevelyan, former Chief Secretary for Ireland, 
 and Chamberlain, head of the radical group. Gladstone 
 claimed to offer a "plan of duly guarded home rule" that 
 maintained in full the "unity of the empire, the authority 
 of the crown, and the supremacy of the imperial parlia- 
 
164 England's Progress 
 
 ment." His famous Home Rule Bill (1886) provided 
 for an Irish Executive who had control of the police, 
 and for a body of Irish representatives chosen by Irish 
 constituencies. Ireland was no longer to have mem- 
 bers in the English Parliament. Irish judges were to be 
 under the control of the Irish Legislature ; and the Irish 
 Legislature, though given the right to levy taxes, was 
 denied the power to place duties on British or foreign 
 goods, to establish or endow any religious institution, and 
 to deal with matters affecting the crown, army, navy, 
 trade negotiations and coinage. In return for benefits 
 received from the English connection, such as defense, 
 Ireland was to pay into the British treasury for imperial 
 expenses, a sum equal to one-twelfth of the British rev- 
 enue. Along with his Home Rule Bill Gladstone intro- 
 duced also a Land Purchase Bill. "Every Irish land- 
 lord was to have the option of selling his estate to the 
 tenants, who would become the proprietors at once, 
 though liable to a payment of interest at four per cent 
 for forty-nine years. The price would be twenty years' 
 purchase, the security would be the revenue of Ireland. 
 If every landlord desired at once to sell the whole of 
 his property, British credit might be pledged to the 
 amount of a hundred and fifty millions sterling." 2 
 
 The effort to pass these bills engendered in Parlia- 
 ment, in the press, in political clubs, in family and in so- 
 cial gatherings, the bitterest discussions. The Prime 
 Minister was termed a "Judas Iscariot." The best men 
 of the nation who dared to espouse Home Rule had flung 
 at them such epithets as "traitor," "sycophant,' "cow- 
 ard." The union of Ireland and England was declared to 
 be "sacred to the memory of Pitt." To yield to the Par- 
 nellites was to make terms with Fenian conspirators, 
 
Salisbury's First and Gladstone's Third Ministry 165 
 
 criminals and assassins. The land purchase act was ob- 
 jected to as "class legislation." Home Rule would mean 
 Rome Rule, an idea fancied by neither the English Angli- 
 cans nor the Presbyterians of Scotland. It meant "sepa- 
 ration," a dissolution of Empire. Against it were not a 
 few illustrious men such as Huxley, Tyndall, Tennyson, 
 Browning, Lecky, Seeley, and Froude. Lord Salisbury, 
 the Conservative chief, expressed himself as satisfied that 
 Ireland needed only "resolute government." 
 
 But Gladstone was tired of special Crime Acts and 
 Arms Acts for Ireland, not believing that the Irish were 
 unfit for self-government having taken a "double dose 
 of original sin." He recognized that aristocratic power 
 and influence were against him, but he hoped to win a 
 victory through the people's support. "On the side of 
 our opponents are found," he said, "as I sorrowfully ad- 
 mit in profuse abundance, station, title, wealth, social in- 
 fluence, the professions, or the large majority of them — in 
 a word, the spirit and power of class. But this formid- 
 able array is the same that has fought in every one of 
 the great political battles of the last sixty years and has 
 been defeated. We have had great controversies before 
 on free trade, free navigation, public education, religious 
 equality, extension of the suffrage. On these and many 
 other great issues the classes have fought uniformly on 
 the wrong side, and have uniformly been beaten by a 
 power more difficult to marshal, but resistless when mar- 
 shalled — by the upright sense of the nation." 
 
 But as it turned out, Gladstone was unable to win his 
 own party, much less the nation to his side. The bill was 
 rejected in the Commons (June 8, 1886), the vote being 
 343 against 313. Ninety-three Liberals voted with the 
 majority. Parliament having been dissolved, and appeal 
 
1 66 England's Progress 
 
 made to the country, a still greater defeat was sustained. 
 The result of the polls (July) was 315 Conservatives, 
 78 Liberal Unionists, 191 Liberals and 86 Irish Na- 
 tionalists. The Liberal party had been disrupted. The 
 78 Liberal Unionists decided to co-operate with the Con- 
 servatives and support a Conservative ministry before 
 they would yield to Gladstone's guidance in the matter 
 of Home Rule. Since the Unionists could show a hostile 
 majority of over 100, there was no course open to Glad- 
 stone but to resign. The Queen sent for Lord Salisbury, 
 who began his second administration, which lasted for six 
 years (August 3, 1886-August 18, 1892). Creditable to 
 Salisbury's first brief administration of six months was 
 the passage of several worthy measures, viz. an eight- 
 penny income tax, an Australian Federation measure, a 
 bill providing a Secretaryship for Scotland, a law for the 
 better protection of young girls, an act empowering the 
 local government councils to destroy houses unfit for 
 habitation, a measure providing for better housing of 
 working people, and a Land Act, modelled on Gladstone's 
 Land Act of 188 1, by which it was provided that tenants 
 buying out their landlords might have advanced them 
 as a loan by the government the whole amount of the pur- 
 chase money, instead of only three-fourths of it as pro- 
 vided in the act of 1881. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Paul: Modern History of England, Vol. 2, p. 15. 
 
 2. Paul : Modern History of England, Vol. 5, p. 46. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SALISBURY'S SECOND MINISTRY, 1 886-1 892, 
 GLADSTONE'S FOURTH MINISTRY, 
 
 1892-1894 
 
 The government of the Unionists did not announce or 
 undertake any special legislative program. The Cabinet 
 was formed at first of Conservatives only, though Salis- 
 bury had invited some of the Liberal Unionist leaders 
 to enter it, even going so far in his magnanimity as to 
 promise Lord Hartington, possibly the most influential 
 Liberal Unionist, the support of the Conservative party 
 if he would undertake to form a ministry and head the 
 government. But Hartington saw that the chief of a 
 party group as small as his own could not expect to be 
 prime minister, and as to his party uniting with the Con- 
 servatives, he knew that that combination was mainly 
 on the one ground of a common hostility to Home Rule. 
 On other questions the Hartington group being Liberals 
 still preferred to stand apart and use their influence to 
 "prevent the Conservative government from a retro- 
 grade policy." They sat, therefore, as ordinary members 
 of the opposition, though they supported with their votes 
 the Conservative government on most of its proposals, 
 some of which concerning domestic reforms were cer- 
 tainly not illiberal, and others of which concerning colo- 
 nial and foreign affairs involved no question of party. 
 
 Salisbury, who was Foreign Secretary as well as Prime 
 
 Minister, was "Foreign Secretary first and Prime Minis- 
 
 167 
 
1 68 England's Progress 
 
 ter afterwards." His excellent handling of external 
 affairs won for him high recognition as a "skilful and 
 peace-loving diplomatist." Among the important 
 achievements of his administration may be mentioned the 
 making of an international agreement with France that 
 secured the neutralization of the Suez Canal, and threw 
 open this highway of commerce to the ships of all na- 
 tions, even to their vessels of war, though forbidding 
 hostile manoeuvers in the canal or on its banks; the mak- 
 ing of a treaty with Russia, concerning the Afghan bound- 
 ary, that maintained still Afghanistan as a buffer state 
 beyond "the legitimate sphere of Russian influence" and 
 strengthened the Ameer's throne, but yet by yielding to 
 Russia certain minor territorial concessions in the Kush 
 and Kasan valleys put an end to a serious controversy 
 which in 1885 came near involving England and Russia 
 in war; the favoring of the formation (1887) of the 
 Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and 
 Italy, which (in Salisbury's opinion) would have the sev- 
 eral effects of hindering France in efforts to win a naval 
 supremacy in the Mediterranean, of holding Russia back 
 in its land aggressive policy and of insuring for some 
 years at least the peace of Europe ; the relief of Suakin, a 
 town on the Red Sea maintained as a check upon the 
 slave trade, which the Dervishes threatened to attack but 
 from which they were driven by a combined British and 
 native force under the lead of British officers, an affair 
 that made clear to all Europe that the safety and order 
 of Europe were dependent directly on the British occupa- 
 tion; and the gaining of British territory in Africa, as 
 well as the forming of agreements between England and 
 the nations Portugal, France and Germany, marking out 
 their respective spheres of control and influence in sec- 
 
Salisbury's Second and Gladstone's Fourth Ministry 169 
 
 tions of the dark continent. Nyassaland and Uganda 
 came into the control of the English who had but recently 
 secured too Santa Lucia Bay on the east coast; and the 
 districts of the Oil Rivers at the mouths of the Niger — 
 Zanzibar, Matabeleland, Mashonaland, Manicaland, and 
 Zululand — also became British through annexation or 
 protectorates. Portugal secured a district of territory 
 north of the Zambesi; France got Madagascar, the 
 Congo territory on the west coast and the Sahara from 
 Algeria to Timbuctoo; and to Germany was given by 
 England in exchange for her claim to the Hinterland of 
 German East Africa, the much coveted islet of Heligo- 
 land in Europe that lies at the mouth of the Elbe and 
 that Germany needed for a naval coaling-station. In 
 October, 1889, was granted the charter of the South 
 African Company, a corporation "half commercial, half 
 imperial," akin to the old East Indian Company, and like 
 it in eventually bringing under English dominion the 
 better part of an immense continent. 
 
 During Salisbury's ministry there assembled at the 
 Foreign Office, April 4, 1887, the First Colonial Confer- 
 ence, a body of statesmen representing a population of 
 nine millions and an area of seven million square miles 
 "united by the golden link of the Crown." * Plans of 
 union for imperial defense, unions for war, rather than 
 schemes of constitution-making and political federation 
 were the practical subjects the Prime Minister en- 
 couraged the conference to discuss and work out. One 
 tangible result of the Conference was an increase in the 
 number of cruisers in Australian waters for the protection 
 of the shipping interest, the expense of maintaining the 
 cruisers being borne by the Australian Government. In 
 1887 was formed the Council of Imperial Institute that 
 
170 England's Progress 
 
 represented the British Isles, the Empire of India, and the 
 Queen's Colonial possessions. In June of this year, too, 
 was- celebrated at Westminster Abbey the completion by 
 Victoria of a half century's rule. In the brilliant throng, 
 numbering 10,000 assembled within the noble Abbey for 
 solemn religious services were rajahs from India, prime 
 ministers of self-governing dependencies, delegates from 
 the most distant colonies, the ecclesiastical and political 
 dignitaries of Great Britain, members of the royal fanv 
 ily, and the Crown Prince of Germany, Her Majesty's 
 son-in-law. The great concourse of people gathered in 
 London from all parts of the United Kingdom to witness 
 the grand pageant in Parliament Street, and the joyful 
 celebrations held that day in all parts of the empire were 
 testimonies of love for the Queen, of loyalty and pa- 
 triotism of British subjects and of the moral unity of 
 the Empire. One feature of the celebration in India 
 was releasing 25,000 prisoners. The jubilee strength- 
 ened the imperial idea too and directed attention to the 
 necessity of strengthening the national defenses. The 
 Two-Power naval standard was soon adopted and in 
 1889 a scheme was agreed to for enlarging the navy by 
 70 new ships that involved the expenditure of 21,500,- 
 000 pounds beyond the ordinary estimates. 
 
 The democratic and social measures of this ministry 
 may be regarded as fruits grown on the Liberal Union- 
 ists' grafting recently implanted on the old Conservative 
 stock. Their most successful measure was the conversion 
 of the National Debt in 1888 by Mr. Goschen, a Liberal 
 Unionist. He had been made Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer in January, 1887, when Lord Randolph Church- 
 ill, a Conservative, had resigned the office on account 
 of being unwilling to support certain extravagant mili- 
 
Salisbury's Second and Gladstone's Fourth Ministry 17 1 
 
 tary expenditures the Cabinet favored. Mr. Goschen 
 gave the holders of the government bonds, the option of 
 being paid off in full at the nominal value of their bonds, 
 or of retaining them and having the interest on them 
 scaled from 3 to 2^ per cent and in 1903 to i l /2 per 
 cent. Those holding the securities preferred to continue 
 to keep them, and the transaction thus netted the Gov- 
 ernment an annual saving in interest of 1,500,000 pounds. 
 From the proceeds of increased liquor taxes Mr. Goschen 
 enlarged the resources of the County Councils, and thus 
 made possible some local governmental advances. 
 
 In 1888 was passed the important County and District 
 Councils Act which created throughout England and 
 Wales elective boards to which were transferred many 
 of the powers formerly exercised by the justices of the 
 peace at quarter sessions. "The pith and marrow of it 
 was the substitution for administrative purposes of 
 County Councils elected by the rate payers instead of 
 county magistrates nominated by the Lord Lieutenant. 
 As a court of justice and of appeal, the magistrates would 
 continue to sit in Quarter Sessions as before." 2 London 
 was also made a "separate administrative county," and 
 to the new council were given practically all the more im- 
 portant powers and functions of local government, ex- 
 cept cqntrol of the police, which order was left under the 
 control of the Home Office, being regarded as a National 
 and not a Municipal force. By the act the people of 
 London were enabled for the first time to direct their 
 own local government. There was a part of the metrop- 
 olis, however, the old City of London, that remained dis- 
 tinct from the new county corporation, and that was al- 
 lowed to retain its ancient rights and privileges. In 1889 
 Scotland had its local government reformed by the estab- 
 
172 England's Progress 
 
 lishment of elective county boards and it also introduced 
 through the local authorities free elementary education. 
 In 1 89 1 Parliament passed the Free Education Act 
 which applied to England and Wales, and made the edu- 
 cation gratuitous in the public elementary schools. In 
 1889 was passed a Prevention of Cruelty to Children 
 Act, prohibiting the employment of children under 10 
 years of age. A useful Factory and Workshop Bill was 
 carried in 1891, the object of which was to safeguard 
 against unsanitary arrangements, against fire and acci- 
 dents, and against such forms of commercial oppression 
 as sweating. A new Public Health Act for London pro- 
 vided for cleaner pavements and a better water supply. 
 The Small Holdings Act of 1892 was planned to furnish 
 the thrifty working men with small allotments of land. 
 The County Councils were to borrow funds and might 
 assist the laborer to the extent of advancing three- 
 fourths of the purchase money which was to be gradu- 
 ally paid off through rentals and yearly instalments. 
 
 For Ireland the Conservative Ministry's plan was 
 "resolute government." The Crimes Act of the Chief 
 Secretary, Mr. Balfour, passed in the Spring of 1887, 
 was most stringent. While not suspending the Habeas 
 Corpus Act or legalizing arbitrary imprisonment of sub- 
 jects, it provided for bringing over to England for trial 
 those committing serious crimes like murder. It gave 
 the Lord Lieutenant power to declare illegal any sort of 
 league or association he deemed dangerous, and it even 
 allowed the trial of cases of conspiracy, by magisterial 
 officers, many of whom were ignorant men, unversed in 
 the law, instead of by juries as was required in England 
 and Scotland. The severe measure was to be in force or 
 left in abeyance at the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, 
 
Salisbury's Second and Gladstone's Fourth Ministry 173 
 
 but unlike former coercive acts that were limited in time, 
 the Balfour Act was to remain a permanent part of the 
 Irish legal system. To impede the passage of the bill the 
 Irish representatives used all manner of obstructive tac- 
 tics, necessitating the amending of the rules of debate 
 and procedure. In 1879 it was estimated that "Parnell 
 had spoken five hundred times, and that two others 
 had spoken over three hundred times each." 3 To 
 facilitate the transaction of business the "cloture" 
 had to be employed. The adoption of the new rules 
 in the parliamentary session of 1887 consumed fifteen 
 nights. 
 
 Of course coercion brought on again crimes and out- 
 rages. Lawlessness was at its height in the fall of 1887. 
 When Parliament the previous year had rejected Par- 
 nell's Tenant and Leaseholder Relief Bill, that proposed 
 in the interest of the distressed renters that a Land Court 
 should have power "to reduce any judicial rent fixed be- 
 fore 1885, and that on payment of half the rent with 
 arrears eviction should be suspended," there had been 
 started a sort of no-rent league. It was agreed that all 
 the tenants of any Irish estate who felt that their rents 
 were excessive might meet and in common decide what 
 rents they felt to be just; that they should offer these 
 rents to their landlords, and that if the rents were not 
 accepted in settlement, the money should be paid into a 
 common treasury in the hands of trustees to be used to 
 resist evictions. The government treated the association 
 as an illegal conspiracy. Many league meetings were 
 broken up, numerous agitators arrested, and leading po- 
 litical offenders, though members of Parliament like Wil- 
 liam O'Brien, seized and handled like ordinary criminals. 
 Balfour eventually succeeded in bringing better order. 
 
174 England's Progress 
 
 Remedial as well as repressive methods were employed. 
 He reduced judicial rents fixed by earlier land courts, 
 made land purchases easier and furnished material relief 
 to large poverty stricken areas. In a visit to the poorest 
 parts of the West of Ireland in the autumn of 1890, he 
 saw for himself a state of destitution that he felt in 
 duty bound to try to relieve. To furnish employment 
 fourteen thousand pounds were spent in constructing 
 railways,' in which work as many as 13,000 men 
 were employed at one time, for whom, when without 
 shelter, the Government furnished huts. To mitigate the 
 suffering caused by a potato-crop failure he raised a con- 
 siderable charity fund and secured also a grant from 
 the British Exchequer. The Government advanced 
 money also for assisting in getting a large quantity of 
 seed-potatoes for the spring planting in the famine dis- 
 trict. The Land Act of 1888 authorized the advancing 
 by the government authorities of another 5,000,000 
 pounds to tenant purchasers. Balfour's larger Land Pur- 
 chase Bill of 1890 went much further. For the first 
 time the state was allowed to advance the whole of the 
 purchase price, the tenant to return the same by paying 
 a four per cent annuity on his holding for forty-nine 
 years and as much as 30,000,000 pounds was authorized 
 to be spent by the Treasury in aiding buyers of land. 
 
 In 1887 interest in the Irish question was considerably 
 stimulated by the publication in the London Times of a 
 series of articles entitled "Parnellism and Crime." The 
 Times presented several letters that bore Parnell's signa- 
 ture in which the Irish leader when in Kilmainham prison 
 was inciting base fellows outside to commit crimes. In 
 one of them appeared statements that might be construed 
 
Salisbury's Second and Gladstone's Fourth Ministry 175 
 
 in a fashion that would indicate that Parnell had sanc- 
 tioned or condoned, if he had not instigated, the assas- 
 sinations of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke 
 in Phoenix Park. Parnell categorically denied from his 
 seat in Parliament the authenticity of the letters; and next 
 year an investigating Government Commission of three 
 judges discovered that they were forgeries. A needy 
 adventurer, "Dick Pigott," had sold them at a handsome 
 price to the manager of the Times. In course of the 
 trial the wretch had confessed, recanted and then con- 
 fessed a second time. Finally he fled from England to 
 Spain, and finding when in Madrid that detectives were 
 close on his heels he blew out his brains in his room at the 
 hotel. Parnell instituted a suit against the Times for 
 libel and forced the paper to pay him 5,000 pounds dam- 
 ages. The expense of the whole inquiry amounting to 
 250,000 pounds had to be borne by the Times also. The 
 final report of the Government Commission of three 
 judges, made in February, 1890, completely exonerated 
 Parnell, and his colleagues. 
 
 Noting the result of the investigation and trial on 
 public opinion, Gladstone, whose mind was wholly set 
 on Ireland, began to draw closer to Parnell. In mid- 
 December of 1889 the Irish chief was a guest at Hawar- 
 den, Gladstone's home, when the outlines of another 
 1 lorne Rule bill were drawn up. A conclave of prominent 
 liberals had been held, and their decision to retain, 
 though with reduction in number, the Irish members at 
 Westminster when granting Home Rule had made some 
 of these men better pleased with the bill. Cecil 
 Rhodes, the South African "Diamond King," had come 
 to the support of the Irish cause too. Rhodes was inter- 
 
176 England's Progress 
 
 ested in Imperial Federation. He believed that for Ire- 
 land to have her own legislature for local affairs, as well 
 as to have representation in the English Parliament, 
 would further his plan of having a grand imperial As- 
 sembly representing all of England's dominions. He 
 offered 10,000 pounds to Parnell in 1888 for advancing 
 the Nationalists' cause on condition that the Irish mem- 
 bers should not be excluded from Westminster by the 
 final Home Rule Act, as had been the case with the de- 
 feated Home Rule Bill of 1886. In the parliamentary 
 bye-elections some of the Liberal candidates had been 
 boldly advancing the policy of conciliating Ireland as 
 against the Unionist plan of coercion and had been win- 
 ning the seats. That the Unionists were weakening and 
 the opposition gaining strength these years is shown by 
 the fact that there were seventy-seven constituencies 
 which in 1886 were represented by forty-seven Union- 
 ists and thirty Liberals, that in the fall of 1890 were rep- 
 resented by thirty-six Unionists and forty-one Liberals. 
 But just as the tide of public favor toward Home Rulq, 
 began to flow strongly, and the Gladstonians and Parnel- 
 lites were becoming intimately friendly, the whole politi- 
 cal world was astounded and shocked by the rumor that 
 Captain O'Shea was petitioning for a divorce on the 
 ground that Parnell had for years been living with his 
 wife. The news seemed unbelievable for O'Shea had 
 been the emissary of Parnell when in jail, and had been 
 instrumental in getting Parnell's release from Kilmain- 
 ham prison under Gladstone's administration. But the 
 charge was true. Parnell did not undertake to defend 
 himself, and the Court (November 17, 1890) pro- 
 nounced a condemnatory decree. Parnell later married 
 Mrs. O'Shea. 
 
Salisbury's Second and Gladstone's Fourth Ministry 177 
 
 The ugly incident was of great political significance. 
 It virtually destroyed Parnell as the leader of the Irish 
 party. He refused to resign the premiership of the Irish 
 Nationalist group and for the remainder of his life, which 
 lasted only about a year, he waged a bitter contest to 
 maintain his place, the wrangle causing division in the 
 Irish parliamentary group. But the strain and disgrace 
 soon told on his strength, and in 1891 at the early age 
 of 45, he died "killing himself by overwork." 
 
 The incident gave a considerable set-back to the Home 
 Rule Cause. Until Parnell was out of the way Ireland 
 itself was divided. The Catholic Church could not en- 
 courage its members to give loyal allegiance to the guilty 
 chief, the destroyer of the peace of a home. Many of 
 the English Liberals among the Non-Conformists and 
 Churchmen withdrew at once from co-operation with the 
 Parnellities. Gladstone declared that his own leader- 
 ship of the Liberal party would be "almost a nullity" if 
 Parnell continued at the head of the Irish Nationalists, 
 and later he openly opposed him. Eventually only 26 
 of the 70 Irish members of Parliament stuck to Parnell; 
 44 left him, choosing Mr. Justin McCarthy as their 
 chief. With this McCarthy group Gladstone continued 
 to work. He had been laboring in the hope of win- 
 ning in the approaching general election a big enough 
 Liberal majority to settle the Irish question possibly in- 
 dependently of the Irish group. But after this "heav- 
 iest blow ever received" he saw this was impossible. The 
 general election of July, 1892, held on the dissolution of 
 parliament by Salisbury was a great disappointment 
 to him. He received only a majority of 40, in which 
 had to.be included all the Irish Home Rulers. The ver- 
 dict of the polls was 269 Conservatives and 46 Liberal 
 
178 England's Progress 
 
 Unionists against 274 Gladstonians and 8 1 Irish Nation- 
 alists. The Liberal party had suffered in the campaign 
 not only from the Irish split but also'Trom the "New- 
 castle programme." This platform had been drawn up 
 by the National Liberal Federation at Newcastle in 
 October of 189 1. In the effort to reconcile various rival 
 groups of Liberals and Radicals by giving something 
 to each, and to make a platform broad enough for all 
 to stand upon, a very comprehensive scheme had been 
 evolved, including besides Home Rule, Disestablishment 
 of the Church in Wales and Scotland, local option, 
 abolition of plural voting, payment of salaries to mem- 
 bers of parliament, employers' liability for accidents, 
 and the establishment of councils for parishes. Each of 
 these proposals had its army of opponents and their 
 united strength had told mightily on election day. The 
 Conservatives had received the support of the Anglican 
 clergy, of the organized liquor trade, and of a great 
 body of employers of labor. Gladstone entering now 
 upon his fourth ministry found himself "in the hands of 
 his allies from across St. George's channel." He had to 
 make Home Rule the foremost question of his adminis- 
 tration. But he wanted to. 
 
 The Home Rule Bill of 1893 differed from the Home 
 Rule Bill of 1886 mainly in two respects: (1) the Irish 
 legislature was to consist of two houses instead of one, 
 the upper house to be composed of 48 members chosen 
 by persons owning considerable property, "with a ratable 
 holding of 20 pounds or more," and the lower to be com- 
 posed of 103 members representing the existing parlia- 
 mentary electoral districts of Ireland; and (2) Ireland 
 was to have representatives at Westminster, 80 of them, 
 who were to vote on all imperial concerns but not on 
 
Salisbury's Second and Gladstone's Fourth Ministry 179 
 
 matters that concerned solely England or Scotland, or 
 on taxes not levied in Ireland, or on appropriations for 
 other than imperial purposes. As in the bill of 1886 the, 
 Irish parliament was to have nothing to do with the con- 
 trol of the army, navy, customs, trade, and foreign 
 affairs; but otherwise the country was to be given full 
 authority, and to have complete control of all internal 
 matters, such as police, laws, taxes, and education. 
 
 The bill was detested by the Conservatives, and so 
 fierce was the opposition and lengthy the debate, that it 
 took six months to get it through the Commons. The 
 measure passed on its third reading by a vote of 301 to 
 267, but on being sent to the House of Lords it was at 
 once rejected by the overwhelming majority of 419 to 
 41 (September 8, 1893). 
 
 Since the nation received the news with apathy and a 
 general election had been held the previous year, Glad- 
 stone did not deem it wise to dissolve parliament, and 
 make an appeal to the country against the Lords; but 
 decided to retain office and proceed at once to the con- 
 sideration and passage of other Liberal measures, de- 
 manded by his party. An Employers' Liability Bill, 
 which made certain employers of labor responsible for 
 injuries sustained by their servants, and a Parish Coun- 
 cils Bill, which proposed to establish elective councils 
 for parishes in England and Wales, thus extending the 
 system of local government begun in 1888 to smaller 
 areas than counties and giving agricultural laborers 
 a share in the management of their affairs were taken up. 
 The second became law but the other he abandoned when 
 the Lords had succeeded in inserting a clause that 
 allowed employers to "contract out" from the benefits of 
 the act. In March, 1894, the aged Premier announced 
 
180 England's Progress 
 
 that he must lay down the burden of office. He was now 
 eighty-four years of age, eyesight and hearing were fail- 
 ing, and the responsibility of government he wished to lay 
 on younger shoulders. The approximate cause of his 
 resignation was his strong objection to an increase of 
 3,126,000 pounds in the naval estimates over the ex- 
 penditure of the previous year. In his last parliamen- 
 tary deliverance, a simple announcement that the minor 
 changes made in the Parish Councils Bill by the Peers 
 would be accepted, he pointed out the "moral of the politi- 
 cal situation" declaring that the House of Lords was 
 acting unwisely in blocking so frequently the passage of 
 laws desired by the House of Commons, that^the grave 
 differences raised between them could not continue, but 
 must "go forward to an issue," in which the Government 
 would take fully, frankly and finally the side oT the House 
 of Commons." 5 His remarks attracted no special at- 
 tention at the time, his audience not knowing that these 
 were the last words which that legislative chamber would 
 hear fall from his lips, "the last political will and testa- 
 ment of the greatest man who had sat in the Commons 
 since the younger, if not the elder, Pitt." On tendering 
 his resignation to the Queen Her Majesty appointed 
 Lord Rosebery Prime Minister, not even consulting Glad- 
 stone, with whose advanced liberalism she had not been 
 in full sympathy and whom she was perfectly willing to 
 have retire. The "Grand Old Man," whom his rival 
 Lord Salisbury spoke of as possessing "the most brilliant 
 intellect ever devoted to the service of the State since 
 Parliamentary Government began," lived only four years 
 after his withdrawal from public life, dying May 19, 
 1898. 
 
Salisbury's Second and Gladstone's Fourth Ministry 181 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 i. Paul: History of Modern England, Vol. 5, p. 101. 
 
 2. Paul: History of Modern England, Vol. 5, p. 138. 
 
 3. Hazen: Europe Since 181 5, p. 498. 
 
 4. Paul: History of Modern England, Vol. 5, p. 199. 
 
 5. Paul: History of Modern England, Vol. 5, p. 256. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE MINISTRIES OF ROSEBERY, 1894-1895, 
 SALISBURY, 1895-1902, AND BALFOUR, 
 
 1902-1905 
 
 When Gladstone in 1894 tendered his resignation to 
 Queen Victoria, partly on account of the infirmities of 
 age, failure of eyesight and hearing, and partly on ac- 
 count of his objection to larger naval expenditures, Lord 
 Rosebery was invited by the Sovereign to head the gov- 
 ernment. His ministry was brief (March, 1894- June, 
 1895), and without large achievements. Though dis- 
 tinguished as a writer and orator, and possessed of fine 
 literary ability and artistic taste, the Premier lacked 
 political experience. He had never been a member of 
 the House of Commons, nor did he have well thought 
 out, settled convictions as to governmental policy. He 
 did not have the full support of his party. Heading a 
 "divided and dispirited Government" he had responsi- 
 bility without power. The best legislative work of his 
 administration was the Budget of 1894. This instituted 
 graduated duties on real and personal property passing 
 at death. It imposed assessments varying from 1 to 8 
 per cent according to the value of the estate, and 
 brought into the Treasury the sum of 4,000,000 pounds. 
 Efforts made to pass a bill for the Disestablishment of 
 the Church in Wales and to carry an Evicted Tenants 
 Bill for Ireland were unsuccessful. Defeated during the 
 
 session of 1895 on a minor amendment to the army esti- 
 
 182 
 
Ministries of Rosebery, Salisbury, and Balfour 183 
 
 mates the disheartened Cabinet realized that it was mak- 
 ing no genuine progress and resigned June 21, 1895. 
 
 In the general election that followed the Conservatives 
 and Liberal Unionists won a majority of 152 seats over 
 the Gladstonian Liberals and Irish Nationalists. The 
 verdict at the polls reflected the rift Gladstone had made 
 in his party by his last Home Rule bill; and showed that 
 the country was with the House of Lords on that pro- 
 posal. Evidently their defeat of the measure was popu- 
 lar. The Conservatives and Liberal Unionists were able 
 to get together because the former were beginning now to 
 show democratic tendencies and the latter imperialistic. 
 The reins of state were again placed in the hands of 
 Lord Salisbury, the Conservative leader. In forming 
 his government he placed some of the most important 
 offices in the hands of prominent Liberals. Hartington 
 was made President of the Council; Lansdowne, Secre- 
 tary for War; Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary; and 
 Goschen, First Lord of the Admiralty. This was Salis- 
 bury's third ministry. It extended from June, 1895, 
 to July, 1902, and during it foreign affairs were to the 
 fore. 
 
 The ministry's record in domestic legislation was not 
 extraordinary and may be quickly told. The Agricultural 
 Rating Act of 1896, "a piece of class legislation," low- 
 ered the assessment of land and gave 1,000,000 pounds 
 in relief of rates, a relief amounting to about one shilling 
 per acre. The Workmen's Compensation Act of 1897 
 increased the workingman's opportunity of enforcing 
 claims against his employer in case of injury or accident, 
 but workmen were allowed to contract out of the provi- 
 sions of the law and certain classes of labor such as 
 domestics and farm hands were excluded from its bene- 
 
184 England's Progress 
 
 fits. The Government of London Act of 1899 created 
 sixteen virtually independent municipalities in the area 
 of the London County Council's government but it left 
 to the old City of London corporation its privileges. 
 The Voluntary Schools Bill of 1897 increased the grant 
 of money to schools not under public control. In 1901 
 was established a Board of Education that took over the 
 work of certain educational departments with the pur- 
 pose of improving and making more uniform the ele- 
 mentary educational system as well as of coordinating 
 better the work of the primary and secondary schools. 1 
 Important were two measures for Ireland: the one of 
 1899 establishing a Department of Agriculture and Tech- 
 nical Instruction, the other the Local Government Act 
 of 1898 that established popularly elected County Coun- 
 cils. Beneficial was the introduction in 1898 of a penny 
 postage between the home land and most of the depend- 
 encies of the Empire. 
 
 Notable was the development in imperialism. Closer 
 union between England and the Colonies was constantly 
 and ably advocated by Mr. Chamberlain, the interesting 
 Colonial Secretary. In 1897 was celebrated the "Diamond 
 Jubilee" marking the sixtieth year of the rule of Queen 
 Victoria at which were gathered the premiers of the self- 
 governing dependencies, delegates from the royal colo- 
 nies, and representatives from India. Mr. Chamberlain 
 used the opportunity to assemble in conference foremost 
 statesmen from various quarters of the Empire for con- 
 sultation and discussion concerning the weighty matters 
 of imperial defense, colonial union and commercial regu- 
 lations. The necessity and mutual benefits of drawing 
 closer the governmental ties that bound together the scat- 
 tered parts of the Empire were recognized and empha- 
 
Ministries of Rosebery, Salisbury, and Balfour 185 
 
 sized as well as the justice and wisdom of all parts of 
 the imperial dominion sharing the burden of imperial 
 defense. But no general agreement as to state policy 
 on these questions was arrived at. One of Mr. Cham- 
 berlain's plans for bringing about a closer federation of 
 the self-governing colonies with England was to institute 
 a system of preferential tariffs within the Empire. In 
 the colonial conference were sounded the first notes of 
 the heated tariff controversy that took definite shape five 
 or six years later and that proved a chief cause of the 
 fall of the Unionist government in 1905. Of imperial 
 significance also was the passage by the British Parlia- 
 ment in 1900 of the Australian Commonwealth Act. 
 The new federal state, with an appointed Governor-Gen- 
 eral to represent the Sovereign, a Senate of elected dele- 
 gates from the incorporated states and a House of Rep- 
 resentatives elected by the people came into being Jan- 
 uary 1, 1901. 
 
 The foreign affairs, which occupied the attention of 
 the government, concerned Armenia, Crete, Venezuela, 
 China, Afghanistan, Egypt and the Transvaal. In the 
 years 1894, 1895 and 1896 occurred horrible massacres 
 of Armenian Christians by the Turks. The Sultan coun- 
 tenanced if he did not instigate the murderous work on 
 the ground that these Christians were anarchists and 
 revolutionists trying to undermine his throne. As many 
 as 100,000 of them were killed in these years. When 
 a group of Armenians in retaliation had succeeded in 
 August, 1896, in dynamiting some buildings in Con- 
 stantinople and seizing the Ottoman Bank there were 
 murdered 5,000 of them in the streets of that one city. 
 Loud and vehement were the denunciations of the bar- 
 barities of the Turk these years all over Europe and 
 
1 86 England's Progress 
 
 especially in England where Gladstone tried in vain to 
 rouse his country to take independent action in behalf 
 of Armenia. Formal protests were made by the consuls 
 of France, England and Russia, and their joint pressure 
 on the Sultan led to a promise of instituting reforms. 
 But this method of correcting the abuses was ineffectual. 
 Russia stood out firmly against the use of any coercive 
 measure against the Sultan, fearing that such interfer- 
 ence by any of the great Powers might issue in erecting 
 u a new Bulgaria in Armenia." The so-called Concert 
 of Powers revived by Salisbury for the purpose of super- 
 vising the promised reforms in the disturbed area was 
 unsuccessful. It lacked force. More than external 
 moral pressure was needed to change the political meth- 
 ods of the Turkish Government. 
 
 In the rising of the Christians of Crete against the 
 Sultan's misrule in 1896 and in the Graeco-Turkish War 
 of 1897 which grew out of the Greeks' support of the 
 Cretans in their effort to win independence for their 
 island, a different line was taken by Salisbury and a bet- 
 ter result ensued. The demand of the Powers that the 
 Cretan Christians should have a share in their gov- 
 ernment was followed by the act of surrounding the 
 island promptly with their fleets. 2 The bombardment 
 of Candia by the British and the threat of single-handed 
 intervention led to the evacuation of Crete by the Turks. 
 Prince George of Greece was made governor of the 
 island December 21, 1898. The Greeks benefited also 
 from Salisbury's interference. In 1897 he secured for 
 them when defeated in their fight better terms than 
 the Turks were at first inclined to yield. 
 
 The Venezuelan controversy arose out of the fact that 
 the Republic of Venezuela laid claim to all the land 
 
Ministries of Rosebery, Salisbury, and Balfour 187 
 
 which had been given to Spain by the bull of Pope Alex- 
 ander VI granted in 1492 when dividing the newly 
 discovered world between Portugal and Spain though 
 some of this land had been gained in 18 14 by Great 
 Britain from Holland and was now a part of British 
 Guiana. The President of the United States, Grover 
 Cleveland, seemed inclined to support Venezuela in the 
 boundary dispute as against England: and taking the 
 stand that encroachments here on the part of Great 
 Britain would be contravening the Monroe Doctrine, he 
 declared his readiness to oppose such advance with 
 armed force. He demanded of England that the mat- 
 ter should be submitted to a board of arbitration and 
 that England should promise beforehand that she would 
 abide by whatever decision the board reached. The Brit- 
 ish nation did not at all relish Cleveland's peremptori- 
 ness and there was some heated feeling and passionate 
 war-like talk. But the self-control, cool-headedness, and 
 good judgment of Salisbury warded off trouble and 
 brought the matter after a few months to a happy issue. 
 Ignoring the threat, assured of the justice of his course 
 and seeing that the House of Commons desired the dis- 
 pute arbitrated, he finally accepted the American pro- 
 posal of adjudication which he at first had rejected. 
 Two British and two United States judges and a Rus- 
 sian jurist formed the arbitration tribunal which in Oc- 
 tober, 1899, rendered a verdict quite favorable to Eng- 
 land giving her pretty nearly everything she claimed. 
 
 Since the Venezuelan controversy nothing has hap- 
 pened to interrupt the feeling of amity and concord ex- 
 isting between the United States and Great Britain. A 
 sign of this goodwill was the new agreement made con- 
 cerning the building of an isthmian canal connecting the 
 
1 88 England's Progress 
 
 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In 1901 the Clayton-Bul- 
 wer treat)- between England and the United States 
 formed in 1S50 was annulled and substituted by the Hay- 
 Pauncefote treaty. The former agreement was to the 
 effect that the "two powers should jointly guarantee the 
 neutrality of any canal they constructed across the isth- 
 mus and that other nations should have a right to sub- 
 scribe to the treaty if they chose.'' s The latter pro- 
 vided for the United States alone to build it and to guar- 
 antee its neutrality. No other nation became a party 
 to the pledge and nothing was said against fortifica- 
 tions. It is pleasing to note that amicable settlement 
 was had of several differences that arose during the 
 century between these two countries. One dispute con- 
 cerning the ownership of the island of San Juan was 
 allowed by common consent of both governments to be 
 settled by the German Emperor who in 1872 gave the 
 island to the United States. The Alaska boundary con- 
 troversy, which arose out of the indefinite terms in the 
 purchase treaty made by the United States with Alaska 
 in 1S67, was settled satisfactorily by a board of six 
 arbiters. The century long wrangle concerning Ameri- 
 can and Canadian fishery rights was adjusted finally by 
 the decision of the Hague Tribunal in 19 10. 
 
 In 1898 Salisbury had to give special attention to the 
 Far Eastern situation. The conditions in China made 
 it appear that the old empire might possibly become 
 dismembered and that much of its territory might be 
 divided out among European powers. After the small 
 nation, Japan, had so easily defeated the Chinese in 
 the War of 1894, several governments of Europe on 
 one pretext or another sought and got foothold on the 
 Chinese seacoast and marked out for themselves re- 
 
Ministries of Rosebery, Salisbury, and Balfour 189 
 
 spectivc spheres of influence and trade. In November, 
 1897, Germany leized die port of Kiau-Chau on the Shan- 
 tung promontory assigning as her reason for this action 
 the desire to obtain satisfaction for the murder of cer- 
 tain German missionaries in the adjacent territory. 'I he 
 seizure was legalized a few months later through a 
 treaty, by which this port and the adjacent territory was 
 leasee] to Germany for a term of ninety-nine years with 
 the right to construct railways, establish fortifications, 
 station troops, and undertake various enterprises 
 throughout the whole province of Shantung. Russia im- 
 mediately followed Germany's move. first obtaining 
 permission in December, 1897, to winter her squadrons 
 at Port Arthur in the Liaotung peninsula, she shortly 
 effected an agreement with China by which Port Arthur, 
 Talienwan and the adjacent territory were leased for 
 a term of twenty-five years with the understanding that 
 the lease could be subsequently extended longer by mu- 
 tual consent. France a year or two later got a port 
 on the Kuang-Chau Bay, and Japan obtained the pledge 
 from China that none of the territory of the province 
 of Fukien opposite the Island of Formosa should be 
 alienated to any power other than Japan. 
 
 Salisbury at the first attempted to prevent these terri- 
 torial aggressions on China and sought only to main- 
 tain commercial privileges for England but failing to 
 restrain other governments he changed his policy. In 
 1898 in the interest of maintaining the balance of power 
 in China he occupied the port of Wei-hai-Wei which 
 faces Port Arthur on the other side of the Gulf of Pechili 
 and in addition secured from China the pledge that no 
 portion of the Yang-Tse basin should be mortgaged, 
 leased or ceded to another power. In order to 
 
190 England's Progress 
 
 strengthen and better to defend her settlement at Hong- 
 kong England soon secured the lease also of a piece 
 of the adjoining mainland. These encroachments of 
 European nations on Chinese territory, the hatred of 
 foreign devils and strong opposition to innovations and 
 reforms undertaken by the young Emperor and liberal 
 leaders representing the so-called Western Culture 
 brought about a revolution in China. The aged and 
 conservative Empress Dowager succeeded in seizing 
 again supreme authority: and at the same time, possibly 
 with the government's connivance, arose the "Boxers," 
 a band of conspirators who sought to run out of the 
 country or murder foreigners and native Christians. On 
 June 20, 1900, the British Legation at Pekin filled with 
 European refugees, among them the foreign mission- 
 aries, was besieged by the Boxers. A military force of 
 20,000 under command of Count von Waldersee com- 
 posed of troops from the United States, Japan, Russia, 
 France and Germany was sent to raise the siege which 
 was accomplished in August, 1900. The head of the 
 anti-foreign movement Prince Tuan, who had been sup- 
 ported by some of the imperial troops, was banished; 
 the leading Boxers were punished; measures for the 
 future security of foreigners were obtained; and in final 
 settlement a war indemnity of about $330,000,000 was 
 forced on the country. The "open door" policy in trade 
 was also directly agreed to by the Powers, an achieve- 
 ment in the main of Mr. John Hay, the United States 
 Secretary of State. This left England, which had se- 
 cured about 80 per cent of China's foreign trade, in as 
 strong a commercial position as ever; but the fact that 
 Germany and Russia, England's rivals, had gotten terri- 
 torial footholds in China was not pleasing to the English 
 
Ministries of Rosebery, Salisbury } and Balfour 191 
 
 public and for this reason Salisbury's Chinese policy 
 was not considered by many altogether successful. 
 
 On the North-West frontier of India occurred in 
 1895 and 1897 formidable uprisings of some of the 
 wild border tribes adjoining the independent buffer state 
 of Afghanistan. The relief of Chitral, a British out- 
 post that had suffered attack, was gained only after a 
 prolonged siege of a month and a half, and the sup- 
 pression of the insurrection in the Tirah valley was ac- 
 complished (1898) only after a long difficult and costly 
 campaign necessitating the sending of a military expe- 
 ditionary force of 60,000 men. 
 
 An important feat of Salisbury's ministry was the final 
 conquest of the Soudan. From 1885 to 1896 the Brit- 
 ish Government maintained a defensive attitude, with- 
 drawing its troops from Soudanese territory and holding 
 only frontier outposts at Suakin and Wady Haifa. But 
 having trained its Egyptian army by English officers into 
 a more efficient force, and having built a military rail- 
 way from Wady Haifa to Abu Hamed the government 
 undertook again to subdue the country sending in a con- 
 siderable British Army. The conquest of the Soudan 
 was felt to be necessary to secure Egypt from attacks 
 from that quarter, to restore national honor impaired 
 by former defeat and to "avenge Gordon." In Septem- 
 ber, 1896, the Anglo-Egyptian army occupied Dongola, 
 and in September, 1897, Berber and in September, 1898, 
 Khartoum. In 1898 the Dervishes were defeated at At- 
 bara, and the Khalifa's army was routed at Omdurman by 
 Kitchener with a loss of 11,000 of its men. In Novem- 
 ber, 1899, the Khalifa himself was slain. These rapid 
 and steady successes "restored British self-respect and 
 gave Egypt the security necessary for internal develop- 
 
192 England's Progress 
 
 merit." 4 In January, 1899, the Soudan was declared to 
 be under the joint sovereignty of Great Britain and 
 Egypt. Its trade and commercial privileges were declared 
 free to all peoples and nations. The erection at Khar- 
 toum of a college as a memorial of Gordon was indica- 
 tive of England's enlightened policy of rule. 
 
 The issue of the Fashoda incident in 1898 was a credit 
 to Salisbury. Major Marchand in command of a small 
 military force from the Congo had hoisted the French 
 flag at Fashoda, a station on the Nile 300 miles above 
 Khartoum, an act which England regarded as unfriendly 
 since it threatened the control of that important river 
 and valley by Great Britain. No attack was made on 
 the French party though the English troops could easily 
 have dislodged them. The firm and positive demand of 
 Lord Salisbury on the French Government proved suffi- 
 cient. France issued an order to Marchand to retire. 
 
 Of most serious character was the South African diffi- 
 culty. With the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand 
 in 1886 there began a rapid immigration of adventurous 
 foreigners into the Transvaal. These trades-men, min- 
 ers, laborers, technical experts and managers who had 
 come to work the mines were termed "Outlanders" ; and 
 among these "birds of passage" were to be found repre- 
 sentatives of all races under the sun, though the British 
 element was vastly predominant. By 1892 these stran- 
 gers in the Dutch Republic numbered 77,000 and ex- 
 ceeded the Boers three to one. Since the Conservative 
 Boers and especially President Kriiger feared the political 
 consequences of this increasing foreign population they 
 did not accord them equal civil and political privileges 
 with themselves, but on the contrary discriminated against 
 them in matters of enfranchisement, representation in 
 
Ministries of Rosebery, Salisbury, and Balfour 193 
 
 legislative bodies, education, taxation and the like. When 
 the Outlanders in 1892 formed the Transvaal National 
 Union for the purpose of airing their grievances and im- 
 proving their condition and made appeal for aid directly 
 to Great Britain, Kriiger began to curry favor with Ger- 
 many and Holland and to import secretly large quanti- 
 ties of ammunition and arms. Since the Dutch claimed 
 that their Republic was a free and independent state and 
 were ready to fight for their contention while England 
 claimed that the state was under her sovereignty it was 
 inevitable that conflict sooner or later would come. In 
 1899 the Boer War began, the first contest with white 
 men that England had had since the Crimean War. 
 
 England was unprepared, lacking troops, ammunition, 
 maps, artillery and transports. The British underesti- 
 mated the strength of their opponents, and were igno- 
 rant of the Boers' military preparations, remarkable cour- 
 age, excellent marksmanship and ability in irregular war- 
 fare. At first victory after victory went to the Boers — 
 Stormberg, Magersfontein, Colenso, and Spionkop. They 
 besieged the British in Ladysmith and Kimberley; and 
 their splendid fighting under the able generalship of 
 Cronje, DeWet and Louis Botha excited the astonishment 
 and admiration of the world. Their tenacious resistance 
 lasted nearly three years. Not until overwhelmed by 
 vastly superior numbers did they yield. England raised 
 her active army forces to 250,000, adding reinforcements 
 of regulars or yeomanry and of troops from the colonies. 
 From India, Canada, Cape Town, and Australia came 
 military aid, over 450,000 men being sent by England 
 to South Africa during the conflict. Lord Roberts was 
 the Commander-in-Chief. In the closing months of the 
 conflict under Lord Kitchener the number of England's 
 
194 England's Progress 
 
 soldiers in South Africa to that of the Boers was as 
 twenty to one. End of the guerilla warfare was only 
 made by erecting block-houses at intervals, erecting 
 barbed-wire entanglements and making a long series of 
 "drives." On June I, 1902, the peace terms were signed 
 at Vereeniging, by which both the Orange Free State and 
 the Transvaal lost their independence and were made 
 portions of the British Empire. The struggle added to 
 England's national debt 160 millions. 
 
 England's treatment of the conquered was generous 
 and liberal. Money on easy terms was furnished for re- 
 building their economic life, the largest sort of free- 
 dom was given in their local government; and some of the 
 ablest leaders of the Boer revolt were honoured by being 
 placed in responsible offices in the new government; e.g. 
 — Louis Botha was made Prime Minister of the Trans- 
 vaal, who in graceful recognition of the courtesy "pre- 
 sented to the Crown the finest jewel in the world." 5 
 
 As to the justice, necessity, and conduct of the Boer 
 War opinion among members of the Liberal Party was 
 quite divided at times. Salisbury noting in 1900 the 
 acute dissensions among his political opponents and being 
 confident as to the result of a "Khaki election," sud- 
 denly in the midst of the conflict dissolved Parliament 
 and appealed to the country for its verdict on his policy. 
 He had the pleasure of seeing enough Conservatives and 
 Liberal Unionists returned to give his coalition ministry 
 an undiminished majority. At the conclusion of the war 
 however in the summer of 1902 on account of failing 
 health he resigned office. The premiership fell to his 
 nephew Mr. Arthur Balfour. A year later, August 22, 
 occurred the death of Salisbury. 
 
Ministries of Rosebery, Salisbury, and Balfour 195 
 
 balfour's ministry, august 1902-DECEMBER 1905 
 
 Among the more important legislative activities of this 
 ministry were the Education Act (1902), the Irish Land 
 Act (1903) and the measures for reorganization of the 
 Army (1904). The Education Act abolished the School 
 Boards, placed in the hands of the County and Town 
 Councils the control of primary education and gave to the 
 denominational schools support from the tax rates. It 
 provided that the secular education in these denomina- 
 tional schools should be under the control of the public 
 authority. Since it required the head teacher and a per- 
 manent majority of the managers of the church schools 
 to belong to the denomination and since most of these 
 schools belonged to the Anglican Church the measure was 
 not at all liked by the Non-Conformists. Their hostility 
 and resistance to the Act was not without effect upon the 
 popularity and strength of Balfour's ministry. The Irish 
 Land Act, improved by an amendment in 1909, made 
 possible the outright purchase by tenants of their hold- 
 ings from landlords by the government's furnishing the 
 purchase money needed. The tenant was allowed to re- 
 turn the loan in annual installments which were less in 
 amount than the former annual rental and ran over a 
 period of forty-nine years. The tenants had received by 
 earlier land acts the privilege of getting purchase money 
 from the Treasury for acquiring their holdings, but not 
 enough always to bridge the chasm between the price the 
 tenant would offer and the price the landlord would take. 
 The new law made possible more transfers and has re- 
 sulted in Ireland becoming more and more a country of 
 free-holders. Increase of land-owning by the Irish has 
 
196 England's Progress 
 
 been attended too by economic and educational advance. 
 The army reforms grew out of the unwelcome facts 
 revealed at the outbreak of the Boer War concerning the 
 unpreparedness, inefficiency and general defectiveness of 
 England's whole military department. The Commission 
 of Inquiry appointed by the government in 1902 to in- 
 vestigate and report on the country's military system con- 
 demned unsparingly the methods of the War Office and 
 showed that a thoroughgoing reorganization was needed. 
 As the result of the work of a War Office Reconstruc- 
 tion Committee the office of Commander-in-Chief was 
 done away with and control was placed in the hands of 
 an Army Council composed of four military members 
 and of one civil and one finance member whose president 
 was the Secretary for War. A new important military 
 Board, the Committee of Imperial Defense, was formed 
 at the head of which was the Prime Minister and under 
 which was a staff of ten or more military and naval offi- 
 cers. Better treatment and better pay was provided for 
 the private soldier and a special board was named for 
 controlling army appointments. At the same time im- 
 provements were made in the naval department. Ob- 
 solete ships were sent to the scrap-heap, the method of 
 selecting cadets was altered and plans laid for a steady 
 enlargement of the navy. The government's policy ap- 
 peared in the Cawdor Memorandum of 1905 advising 
 the building every year of four modern dreadnaughts. 
 ' ; Tinkering with the tariff," as Americans say, seems to 
 have caused the fall of Balfour's ministry. In 1903 on 
 returning from a visit to South Africa, the Colonial Secre- 
 tary, Mr. Chamberlain, suddenly and with rather star- 
 tling effect presented in a speech the plan of employing a 
 preferential tariff scheme as a means for binding together 
 
Ministries of Rosebery, Salisbury, and Balfour 197 
 
 better the colonies and the mother-land. He believed 
 that the high protective systems of such nations as the 
 United States and Germany had given them great ad- 
 vantages over free-trade England in allowing them to 
 exclude from their markets England's wares while en- 
 joying the right and practice of freely dumping their 
 own products on the markets of Great Britain and her 
 colonies. He held that industrial and commercial condi- 
 tions had changed radically since the days of Peel, Bright 
 and Cobden; likewise the Colonial ambitions of rival 
 nations and the comparative manufacturing and mili- 
 tary strength of different countries; and that the intro- 
 duction of a system of reciprocity and preferential duties 
 in colonial trade would benefit the whole British Empire. 
 Such a plan would bring industrial prosperity to the home- 
 land and bind together with the golden bands of mutual 
 commercial advantage all parts of the realm. He would 
 not tax raw materials needed for English factories but 
 he would place moderate tariffs on such food products 
 as grain, flour, butter, cheese, meats, and on foreign fac- 
 tory wares. He would reduce somewhat the duties levied 
 on the table comforts, teas, coffee, sugar and cocoa. 
 
 His views attracted universal attention at the time and 
 no end of discussion. The costs and indebtedness in- 
 curred in the war just ended, the general business de- 
 pression, lack of employment, jealousy of the growing 
 power of rival nations, and the spirit of imperialism all 
 tended to lend interest to his arguments and appeal. But 
 since his proposal involved raising the price of food and 
 contained the erroneous implication that custom revenues 
 would not suffer though fewer imports were allowed he 
 could win neither the majority of his fellow-members 
 of the cabinet nor a majority of the public to accept his 
 
198 England's Progress 
 
 views and leadership in the matter. Balfour was not 
 opposed to the retaliatory feature of the proposition; 
 but he did not favor the increased tax on the people's 
 bread. The plan as a whole was regarded by the Prime 
 Minister as impracticable and inopportune. He finally 
 informed Chamberlain that the question of preferential 
 tariffs could not be brought up during the existing Par- 
 liament and made the suggestion that it be considered at 
 length and formulated better at the next Colonial Con- 
 ference. Mr. Chamberlain thereupon resigned from 
 the Cabinet. Shortly after this several other members 
 of the Cabinet quit also but strange to say for opposite 
 reason. They were not followers of Chamberlain but 
 held free-trade principles. They became dissatisfied be- 
 cause Balfour expressed certain fiscal views that to them 
 savoured a bit of the proposed protective programme. 
 The Cabinet reconstructed with less capable men held 
 on though with failing powers and waning prestige until 
 1905. Conscious of the dissensions and divisions in his 
 following that had arisen over not only the tariff ques- 
 tion but over problems connected with education, labor, 
 the army, and the aftermath of the Boer War Balfour 
 in December of that year resigned also. He hoped that 
 the disaffected Liberals would not be able to form a min- 
 istry and that he and the Conservatives would be recalled 
 to power. He was disappointed. Sir Henry Campbell- 
 Bannerman, the foremost Liberal, became Prime Min- 
 ister and formed a Cabinet having such able political 
 leaders as Asquith, made Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 and Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary. When in Janu- 
 ary, 1906, Parliament was dissolved and appeal made 
 to the country for support of the Liberal programme 
 which demanded "the exclusion of Chinese labor from 
 
Ministries of Rosebery, Salisbury, and Balfour 199 
 
 the Transvaal; the emendation of the Education Act 
 in the interest of the Non-Conformists; the reduction and 
 national control of liquor licenses; and sweeping meas- 
 ures for social and industrial betterment," the party 
 gained the grandest victory at the polls and the greatest 
 majority in Parliament won since the election following 
 the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Edwards: Notes on British History, Part IV, p. 1048. 
 
 2. Edwards: Notes on British History, Part IV, p. 978. 
 
 3. Bassett: United States, p. 815-816. 
 
 4. Edwards: Notes on British History, Part IV, p. 937-938. 
 
 5. Pollard: British Empire, p. 539. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 MINISTRIES OF CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, 
 1906-1908, AND OF ASQUITH UP TO 1914 
 
 A new epoch of reform activity was opened in 1906 
 when the Conservatives who had enjoyed with the ex- 
 ception of three years under Gladstone and Rosebery 
 ( 1 892-1 895) an uninterrupted lease of power for 
 twenty years were ousted from leadership by the general 
 election of that year. The returns showed 378 Lib- 
 erals, 53 Labor representatives and 83 Irish National- 
 ists as against 131 Conservatives and 25 Liberal Union- 
 ists. A few of the Labor and Irish members were 
 pledged to vote independently of party but still the gov- 
 ernment could command a Liberal and Labor majority 
 over all other groups combined of about 134. This ma- 
 jority was reduced considerably in the two general elec- 
 tions of 19 10 — one concerning the Budget and the other 
 concerning limiting the powers of the House of Lords — 
 so that the Liberal ministry had then to depend on the 
 Irish Nationalist vote as well as on the Labor vote 
 to conduct business. 1 
 
 Bold was the spirit, radical and progressive were the 
 principles of the Liberal government as it pressed for- 
 ward its measures of political democracy and social re- 
 form led first by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime 
 Minister until his death in 1908 ; and then by Mr. Asquith, 
 his successor in office, supported by his fearless, able 
 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr. Lloyd George. Among 
 
 200 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 201 
 
 the foremost subjects dealt with were Irish Home Rule, 
 restriction of the powers of the House of Lords, the dis- 
 establishment of the Church of Wales, the reform of the 
 taxing system, land reform, Workmen's Compensation, 
 Labor Organizations, Education and Child Welfare, 
 Employer's Liability, Old Age Pensions and National 
 Insurance. 
 
 This full and varied program was necessitated in 
 large part by the nature and demands of several strong 
 organizations that had backed the Liberals in the elec- 
 tion. Support had come from the United Irish League 
 of Great Britain that denounced the Conservatives' 
 long rule of coercion for Ireland; from the Independent 
 Labour Party, a moderate socialistic body organized by 
 Keir Hardie in 1893; from the Fabian Society formed 
 in the early eighties and led by Sydney and Beatrice Webb, 
 G. B. Shaw and H. G. Wells that advocated the municipal 
 or national ownership of land and industrial capital; 
 from the Social Democratic Federation formed in 1883 
 demanding the state maintenance of children and the 
 provision by the State of work for the unemployed; and 
 from the Congress of Trade Unions held not long be- 
 fore the election representing about one and a half mil- 
 lion of organized workers which favored such proposals 
 as the nationalization of mines and railways, municipal 
 banking, secular education in the state schools and old age 
 pensions. Trade Unions sent in 1906 about half a hun- 
 dred members to Parliament. The enactments of the 
 Liberals revealed a more tender regard for the welfare 
 of the workingman than for the interests of the capitalist 
 or land-owner. The area of state interference in indus- 
 try was enlarged; and individualistic methods gave place 
 in some lines to collectivism and public action. The pow- 
 
202 EngUmd*s Progress 
 
 crs oi democracy were consciously organized for the 
 purpose of meeting various social needs. Mr. Aid en 
 well expressed the new attitude. "The main point is that 
 the function oi the State in the mind of the Liberal and 
 Radical of to-d.iv is much wider in scope than seemed 
 possible to our predecessors. The State avowedly claims 
 the right to interfere with industrial liberty and to modify 
 the old economic View of the disposal of private prop- 
 erty. 1 iberalism recognizes that it is no longer possible 
 to accept the view that all men have an equal chance. 
 . . . The liberal asks that such economic changes shall 
 be introduced as will make it possible for every man to 
 possess a minimum oi security and comfort. Property 
 is no longer to have an undue claim; great wealth must 
 be prepared to bear burdens in the interests of the whole 
 community. Our social system must have an ethical 
 basis." - Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman declared "that 
 underlying every proposal oi his government would be 
 a policy oi social reconstruction looking toward a greater 
 equalization of wealth, and the destruction of the op- 
 pressive monopolies of the land and of liquor." Mr. 
 Asquith stated "that the injustice of the present social 
 system rendered a popular attack upon it inevitable"; 
 that "property must be associated in the minds of the 
 masses of the people with the ideas of reason and justice." 
 Some of the ameliorative measures oi the Liberals that 
 concerned labor conditions and the care of children and 
 dependents were in keeping with the avowed principles 
 of the Conservatives who since the days of Disraeli had 
 proclaimed as a chief plank in their party platform social 
 betterment. The party that had heralded its faith in 
 the paternalistic creed of benevolent government could 
 hardly hope for the future support of the masses had 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 203 
 
 it voted down such bills as those providing meals for 
 the children of the poor at school, compensation to work- 
 men accidentally injured and assistance to the industrious 
 laborer in finding employment. The Workmen's Com- 
 pensation Act (1906) consolidated the laws making em- 
 ployers liable for payment to employees for injuries by 
 accident suffered in their work. An Education Act of the 
 same year conferred on the local educational authorities 
 the power to provide the means of furnishing meals to 
 school children. They may provide buildings, furniture 
 and managers necessary for the preparation and service 
 of meals. They are to collect the cost of furnishing the 
 meals from the children's parents in case the parents are 
 able to pay. If not the local authorities may apply to 
 the Board of Education and that board may authorize 
 them to spend out of the rates such sum as will meet the 
 cost of the provision of such food provided that the 
 amount expended does not exceed the sum produced by 
 a rate of one half penny in the pound. 
 
 The Children's Act sought to guard against cruel treat- 
 ment of children at the hands of their parents, to classify 
 and train properly the youths in reformatories and like 
 penal institutions, to care better for the juvenile criminals 
 by providing probation officers and children's courts, and 
 by forbidding their commitment in the common gaols. 
 
 The Old Age Pensions Act ( 1908) which was amended 
 in 191 1 provided a pension for every person who attained 
 seventy years of age and had been for twenty years pre- 
 vious a British subject, and whose annual income did not 
 exceed thirty-one pounds ten shillings. The pension 
 varies in amount but may be as much as five shillings per 
 week. The receipt of it does not deprive the recipient 
 of any franchise right. The benefits of the law are de- 
 
204 England's Progress 
 
 nied to such persons as have been habitually lazy and 
 unemployed, are in receipt of poor relief, make false 
 statements as to earnings and possessions or deprive them- 
 selves of any property or income in order to qualify as 
 pensioners. 
 
 The Labor Exchanges Act (1909) dealt with the 
 problem of unemployment. It established offices where 
 registers are kept of employers needing workmen and 
 of laborers seeking employment. Its purpose is to bring 
 together supply and demand in the labor market by col- 
 lecting all information available from both sides. The 
 Trades Boards Act (1909) dealt with the "sweating" 
 evils such as extremely low wages, excessive hours and 
 unsanitary shops. The drift of population from the rural 
 districts to the cities, the tendency of the weaker classes 
 in cities to become dependent, early marriages, big fam- 
 ilies, low standards of life, the inefficiency and ignorance 
 of laborers and an excessive supply of unskilled work- 
 men, all tended to create in some trades, such as tailor- 
 ing and making of nets, laces and paper boxes, conditions 
 that placed thousands of poor men, women and youths at 
 the mercy of greedy and unscrupulous employers. The 
 new law created boards empowered to fix minimum rates 
 of wages and to enforce better conditions in the shops. 
 Rates of wages may be fixed to apply universally to the 
 trade or to any special process or to any special class of 
 workers or to any special area within the trade. The 
 Trade Boards anticipate disputes about wages. They 
 .re permanent joint boards composed of representatives 
 of laborers and of representatives of employers. They 
 fix wages from time to time which have the force of law. 
 Each special industry to which the Act applies has its own 
 special trade board. The National Insurance Act ( 1 9 1 1 ) 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 205 
 
 provided insurance for illness and loss of work. It re- 
 quired all employed manual laborers between sixteen and 
 seventy years of age who earned less than 160 pounds a 
 year to be insured and compelled their employers to con- 
 tribute part of the insurance funds. The State pays to 
 the fund per week two pence, the employer three, the 
 workmen four. The insurance may be carried in a regu- 
 lar insurance company or in a trade union approved by 
 the State. Besides payment in times of sickness, such aids 
 as medical attention, sanatorium treatment for tubercular 
 cases and maternity benefits for mothers in parturition are 
 given. In 19 17 fifteen million workers were insured under 
 the Act and the insurance fund totaled 99,000,000 pounds. 
 In 191 1 the State instituted an Unemployment Insurance 
 system to be applied to a few enumerated trades. The 
 employer and wage earner each contributed 2 l / 2 pence a 
 week and the State one-third of their combined contribu- 
 tion; and from this fund a man who was really unable to 
 get work would be paid a small amount each week for 
 a specified time. As many as a million and a half labour- 
 ers are connected with this scheme. 3 
 
 The Development Act (1909) provided for the Treas- 
 ury making advances of money to a government depart- 
 ment or through the department to an institution, asso- 
 ciation or company not trading for profits for such pur- 
 poses as promoting forestry, reclaiming and draining land, 
 constructing and improving roads, and giving instruction 
 in marketing arid scientific farming. The Housing Act 
 (1909) was aimed at getting rid of the ills of over- 
 crowded tenements. In 1901 the census commissioners 
 declared that there were as many as 2,667,000 persons 
 living in unsanitary quarters. In some of the industrial 
 centres one-fifth of the people were living in one-room 
 
206 England's Progress 
 
 dwellings and more than half in houses of not more than 
 two rooms. Knowing that unsanitary housing accounted 
 for much of the drunkenness, crime, pauperism, disease 
 and high mortality in these places the government in the 
 interests of decency and the public health determined to 
 tear down the ugly back to back houses of the slums and 
 to build in their stead new, comfortable, well-ventilated 
 tenements; to provide gardens, parks, playgrounds and 
 open sun-lit spaces for the recreation of the people, and 
 to direct the future growth of towns with an eye to health, 
 comfort and beauty as well as to business utility. This 
 policy of government interference with the property of 
 landlords was in spirit and purpose in keeping with sev- 
 eral enactments passed in the last decade or two as the 
 fruits in part of the activities of such organizations as the 
 "Commons Prevention Society" formed in 1865 and the 
 "Allotments and Small Holdings Association" formed in 
 1885. The purposes of these societies have been to save 
 from private enclosure and for public use many open 
 areas about the cities and towns, and to encourage garden- 
 ing and agricultural thrift among the laboring classes 
 by providing a way by which they may rent on easy terms 
 little patches for trucking or may purchase outright small 
 farms by paying very moderate annual stipends over a 
 number of years. The Small Holdings Act of 1892 made 
 it the duty of each County Council, when the demand for 
 small farms seemed to justify it, to secure (but not by 
 compulsory purchase) suitable land, to fence, drain, and 
 in general improve it and then lease or sell it to parties 
 that would themselves cultivate it. The purchaser had 
 to pay one-fifth of the price in cash; 4 he might leave one- 
 fourth as perpetual ground rent and he could repay the 
 remainder in half yearly instalments during a period not 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 207 
 
 longer than fifty years. By the allotment laws of 1882, 
 1887, 1890 and 1894 it was made the duty of the local 
 government through the parish councils to provide suffi- 
 cient allotments varying from one-quarter of an acre to an 
 acre in size for the poorer working-class families who de- 
 sired them even if the land could be secured only through 
 compulsory purchase. The growth in the number of such 
 allotments has been rapid and continuous. In 1895 they 
 numbered 579,133. By the Commons Law Amendment 
 Act of 1893 the community's interest in the Common has 
 been placed above the freedom of action and private ad- 
 vantage of the lord of the manor. "Village greens, road- 
 side wastes and open spaces" that have been long used 
 for pasturage or cutting turf or recreation by the people 
 are no longer allowed to be fenced off as gentlemen's 
 private parks and game preserves. 
 
 Several measures of social reconstruction proposed by 
 the Liberals were staunchly and successfully opposed by 
 the Conservatives. The latter was thoroughly intrenched 
 in the House of Lords, an aristocratic body well repre- 
 senting the landed interests. In spite of the overwhelm- 
 ing popular majority of the Liberals in the House of 
 Commons the Conservatives by means of the Peers de- 
 feated the ministry's proposal for abolishing plural vot- 
 ing, for having a general land valuation, for placing heavy 
 license duties on public-houses and for a revision of the 
 educational system. The Conservatives declared the in- 
 tention of the Educational Bill of 1906 advocated by 
 the Non-Conformists was to establish a purely secular 
 system : and they were able to defeat the bill on the 
 grounds that it was against the interest of religion and of 
 the Established Church. The License Bill of 1908, a 
 temperance and social reform measure, was opposed on 
 
20 8 England's Progress 
 
 the grounds that it was confiscatory in principle and was 
 class legislation. To forbid plural voting was a "dan- 
 gerous novelty" ; the land proposals were "against vested 
 rights"; and the new taxing schemes were nothing less 
 than revolutionary. But the world war that opened in 
 1 9 14 brought into being laws containing the substance 
 of nearly all these rejected measures. 
 
 The big clash between the Conservatives and the Lords 
 on the one hand and the Liberals and Commons on the 
 other occurred over the new and far-reaching proposals 
 of Mr. Lloyd George's famous Budget of 1909. The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to claim for the 
 State a share of the unearned increment in land values, 
 to tax at different rates income that was earned and in- 
 come tl\at was unearned, to tax undeveloped property 
 and to differentiate in treatment acquired wealth accord- 
 ing as it had rendered service or "disservice" to society. 
 Large revenues were needed to carry out the new costly 
 social reforms, such as the expensive system of national 
 insurance adopted; and to cover the increasing financial 
 burdens for naval construction and maintenance of Em- 
 pire made necessary by the militaristic and colonial plans 
 projected by the Conservatives when in power. The pro- 
 posals of the Chancellor were directed straight at the 
 property of the rich. He suggested placing a twenty 
 per cent tax on unearned increment on land payable on 
 its sale or transfer; a special tax on the owners of mineral" 
 lands who exacted royalties; a heavy graduated income 
 tax, with a super-tax on incomes over 5,000 pounds and 
 with a heavier tax on earned than on unearned incomes; 
 high license taxes, a heavy tax on automobiles and motor 
 cycles and inheritance taxes on a new scale. On estates 
 over 1,000,000 pounds the inheritance tax was to be as 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 209 
 
 high as fifteen per cent. To defend England and to rid 
 her of the curse of poverty was declared by Mr. George 
 to be the purposes of his bill. Concluding his Budget 
 speech in the Commons (April 29, 1909) he said "This 
 . . . is a War Budget. It is for raising money to 
 wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness. 
 I cannot help hoping and believing that before this gen- 
 eration has passed away we shall have advanced a great 
 step towards that good time when poverty and wretched- 
 ness and human degradation which always follow in its 
 camp will be as remote to the people of this country as 
 the wolves which once infested its forests." Supporting 
 the proposal Mr. Winston Churchill, Secretary of State 
 of the Home Department, declared "The tax gatherer is 
 now to ask not only how much property a man has, but 
 also how did he get it? He asks 'Did you earn it by your- 
 self or has it been left to you by others? Was it gained 
 by processes which are in themselves beneficial to the 
 community in general, or was it gained by processes which 
 have done no good to anyone, but harm? Was it gained 
 by the enterprise and capacity necessary to found a busi- 
 ness, or merely by squeezing and bleeding the owner and 
 founder of the business? Was it gained by supplying the 
 capital which industry needs, or by denying, except at 
 extortionate price, the land which industry requires?' 
 How did you get it? That is the new question which 
 has been postulated, and which is vibrating in penetrat- 
 ing repetition through the land?" 
 
 Opposing the Budget were the landlord class, the real 
 estate interests, the tobacco trade, the motor industry 
 and a host of brewers, distillers, bankers and capitalists. 
 The Lords declared it would destroy the credit of Eng- 
 land, "the bank and the workshop of the world." It 
 
210 England's Progress 
 
 would destroy the sanctity of property and confidence in 
 England's financial prudence, equity, stability and 
 strength. After long debate the Budget was passed in the 
 House of Commons, having received a handsome ma- 
 jority, but in the House of Lords it was defeated by an 
 adverse vote of 350 to 75. This throwing out by the 
 Peers of a money bill of the Commons planned to pro- 
 vide for the services of the year was declared in the Lower 
 House to be "a breach of the Constitution and a usurpa- 
 tion of the rights of the House of Commons." Parlia- 
 ment was dissolved and an appeal made to the country. 
 In the election campaign that followed there was about 
 as much discussion concerning mending or ending the 
 House of Lords as concerning the merits or demerits of 
 the Budget. The Socialists, Radicals and Irish were 
 ready to abolish the Upper Chamber, stigmatized as the 
 "one stagnant and unprogressive branch of the legisla- 
 ture." The constitution of a legislative body on the he- 
 reditary principle was declared "illogical and incom- 
 patible with free institutions." It was urged that fa- 
 voritism, or wealth, or political influence, or naval and 
 military service, rather than eminent legislative ability 
 was frequently the determining factor in appointments 
 to the peerage, that "honors rather than duties are 
 emphasized" and that it was a mistake to allow a title 
 of honor to carry with it the right of making a nation's 
 laws. It was declared that the representation of an as- 
 sembly whose members numbering about 600 owned one- 
 third of the cultivated and over one-fourth of all the land 
 of England (on an average of 38,672 acres for each 
 peer) was decidedly one-sided and unfair. It gave too 
 much weight to the landed aristocracy and too little to 
 the commercial, manufacturing and industrial interests 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 211 
 
 of the country. The Chamber was criticized as "out of 
 touch with the people." The hereditary principle was 
 constantly ridiculed. "We allow babies to be ear-marked 
 in their cradles as future law-makers, utterly regardless 
 as to whether they turn out to be statesmen, or fools, or 
 rogues." 5 
 
 The Liberal Party did not agree with the Radicals in 
 believing that the House of Lords should be abolished 
 but they were opposed to its vetoing vital laws passed 
 by the Commons and were determined to abridge or 
 restrict its power. They did not desire single chamber 
 government, believing it beneficial to have the Upper 
 Chamber exercising powers of delay and suggestion of 
 amendment; but they were resolved to destroy forever 
 the Lord's veto power over the money bills of the Com- 
 mons and over other public bills that were clearly the 
 desire of the people. In the election (January, 19 10) 
 the Liberals won though they lost almost a hundred 
 seats. The Budget was again presented and the Lords 
 this time yielded its passage. 
 
 In the spring of 19 10 occurred the death of the sov- 
 ereign, Edward VII, who was succeeded by his son George 
 V. This occasioned a sort of truce between the Con- 
 servatives and Liberals for a few months but with the 
 assembling of Parliament the fight was again renewed. 
 In November a dead-lock occurred that caused another 
 appeal to the country. In this second election (December, 
 19 10) the Liberals made slight gains and now felt strong 
 enough to press for restricting the power of the Lords. 
 The main provision of Mr. Asquith's Parliamentary Bill 
 read: "If any money Bill, having been passed by the 
 House of Commons, and sent up to the House of Lords 
 at least one month before the end of the session, is not 
 
212 England's Progress 
 
 passed by the House of Lords without amendment within 
 one month after it is sent up to the House, the Bill shall, 
 unless the House of Commons direct to the contrary, be 
 presented to His Majesty and become an Act of Par- 
 liament on the Royal assent being signified, notwithstand- 
 ing that the House of Lords have not consented to the 
 Bill. 
 
 "If any Public Bill (other than Money Bill or a Bill 
 containing any provision to extend the maximum dura- 
 tion of Parliament beyond five years) is passed by the 
 House of Commons in three successive sessions (whether 
 of the same Parliament or not) and, having been sent up 
 to the House of Lords at least one month before the end 
 of the session, is rejected by the House of Lords in each 
 of these sessions, that Bill shall, unless the House of 
 Commons direct to the contrary, be presented to His Maj- 
 esty and become an Act of Parliament on the Royal As- 
 sent being signified thereto, notwithstanding that the 
 House of Lords have not consented to the Bill. Provided 
 that this provision shall not take effect unless two years 
 have elapsed between the date of the second reading in 
 the first of these sessions of the Bill in the House of Com- 
 mons and the date on which it passes the House of Com- 
 mons in the third of these sessions," etc., etc. 
 
 The Bill was stoutly resisted by the Lords. They 
 claimed that it practically set up single-chamber govern- 
 ment; that the advantages of the period of delay pro- 
 vided in the Bill were illusory; that the suggestions of the 
 weakened Upper House would be treated with contempt 
 by the all-powerful Lower House ; that the supporters of 
 the Bill did not realize what a revolutionary thing they 
 were proposing; that they had brought in the Bill with 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 213 
 
 the "trivial elegance with which they introduced a turn- 
 pike Act" ; and seemed to regard 'The House of Lords 
 as simply a culprit to be hanged without shift and with- 
 out repentance." In the minds of the Liberals the Bill 
 was a "strictly true constitutional proposition" since to 
 give this increased authority to the Commons simply 
 meant to acknowledge the supremacy of the people in 
 law-making; and when their leader Mr. Asquith made 
 known the fact that the king was with them in the con- 
 test and ready if necessary to create enough new peers to 
 insure its passage they were able to force the unwilling 
 assent of the Lords. To have allowed some hundred or 
 so peers to be created solely to pass the measure would 
 have made, as the Archbishop of Canterbury thought, 
 the House and the country "a laughing stock in the Do- 
 minions and in foreign countries." In August, 191 1, the 
 Bill became law. 
 
 Unpopular with the Conservatives and Lords also was 
 the Act of the Liberal Government that gave members 
 of parliament salaries of 400 pounds a year, which was 
 passed shortly after the Parliament Act. The measure 
 was pleasing to the Laborites and the democracy gen- 
 erally since it made possible the entry into parliamentary 
 service of a large number of more capable and desirable 
 men whose means were limited and saved political and 
 industrial organization? the burden of supporting out of 
 their funds some of then representatives in the Commons. 
 Opponents of the Act had argued that paid members of 
 Parliament would become mere "delegates of their con- 
 stituents rather than free representatives, and suffer loss 
 of moral authority" ; that paying members salaries would 
 result in bringing to the halls of Westminster the profes- 
 sional politician and agitator; that the rate of pay would 
 
214 England's Progress 
 
 be increased until it became a heavy burden on the tax 
 payer and that it would lead to claims for payment for 
 many services formerly rendered gratuitously in both 
 national and local governments. 
 
 In 19 12 Mr. Asquith introduced his Home Rule Bill. 
 It provided for a parliament in Ireland, consisting of a 
 senate of 40 members and a house of commons of 164 
 members. Ulster, the Northern Province of 1 1 counties, 
 was to have 59 members. The Irish Parliament could not 
 make any law to establish or endow any religion or pro- 
 hibit the free exercise thereof or give any privilege or 
 impose any disability on account of religious belief. It 
 could not legislate on peace or war, the navy, army, for- 
 eign relations, trade outside Ireland, coinage or legal 
 tender. The executive was to remain vested in the sov- 
 ereign or his representative, and 42 members from Ireland 
 were to be elected to the British House of Commons. The 
 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was to have 
 power to pass on the constitutionality of any act of the 
 Irish Parliament. The Irish Exchequer was to bear in 
 main the expenses of the Irish administration. The Im- 
 perial Exchequer was to pay a permanent annual sum to 
 the Irish Exchequer of 20.0,000 pounds. The first year it 
 would pay a sum of 500,000 pounds. 
 
 The measure met with staunch and bitter opposition 
 from the Conservatives and Unionists of England and 
 from the prosperous Protestant minority of Ulsterites. 
 Ulster returned 17 Home Rulers and 16 anti-Home 
 Rulers. Nearly half of the best of Ulster has a popula- 
 tion purely Scotch and English, a people thrifty, mat- 
 ter of fact, and different from the Irish in language, tem- 
 perament, history and religion. This alien minority pre- 
 fers English to Irish rule. Energetic and enterprising it 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 215 
 
 has built up many great industries and commercial under- 
 takings, and it believes that there is nothing to gain and 
 much to lose by having themselves, their business and 
 property placed at the mercy of an Irish parliament. Be- 
 tween the Catholic Celts of Ireland and the Protestant 
 colonizers of Ulster has long existed a bitter animosity; 
 and the latter were unwilling to have their laws and taxes 
 determined by a parliament in which the former had an 
 overwhelming majority. These Englishmen of Ulster, 
 numbering about one and a half millions declared that 
 England could not honorably remove them from the pro- 
 tection of the British Parliament; that as Englishmen 
 they had a right to English government; and that before 
 they would submit to be subjected to the rule of Irish- 
 men they would go to war. They had the sympathy of 
 the Conservatives and Unionists, who opposed Home 
 Rule on the grounds that the concession of a parliament 
 given in the Bill would be regarded by the Irish as a 
 mere installment of their right; that it was a step toward 
 establishing a hostile nation on England's flank; that 
 Ireland was close at hand and could be best governed 
 from London; that agrarian troubles had been at the 
 bottom of Irish discontent and that these were being re- 
 moved through better land laws and the government's 
 policy of furnishing to the agricultural and industrial 
 interests of the country financial aid and the directing 
 skill of experts. 
 
 The friends of Home Rule on the other hand affirmed 
 that Ireland possessed a distinct nationality and had there- 
 fore a right to govern herself; that Ireland did not desire 
 separation from England, but did seek the repeal of the 
 Act of Union, which was never consented to and which 
 had resulted in an unpopular, inefficient and extravagant 
 
216 England's Progress 
 
 system of government ; that progress in the material and 
 intellectual life of the people would follow from the ex- 
 ercise of self-government; that England would make Ire- 
 land friendly by making her free; and that the Ulster 
 Unionist minority exaggerated their importance when 
 magnifying t^eir claims above the just demand of a whole 
 nation; and that they had no reason to expect unfair treat- 
 ment by the Nationalists in a native parliament since in 
 matters of local government they had been justly dealt 
 with. 
 
 After two years of struggle, thanks to the Parliamen- 
 tary Act of 191 1, that thwarted the veto power of the 
 House of Lords, the Home Rulers won. The Bill was 
 passed for the third time by the House of Commons in 
 May, 1 9 14, and was signed by the King and placed on 
 the statute book the next September. But owing to the 
 unwillingness of Ulster to be included within the pro- 
 visions of the Act, its opposition under the leadership of 
 Sir Edward Carson taking the militant form of raising 
 and drilling a volunteer army of 100,000, operation of 
 the Act was repeatedly suspended; and finally by reason 
 of the fight with Germany was postponed to the end of 
 the War. When this closed the situation in Ireland was 
 so changed that Lloyd George, who was now at the head 
 of the government, had eventually to work out an en- 
 tirely new Act. 
 
 A measure of the Liberal Government that was very 
 popular with the Non-Conformists was the Welsh Dis- 
 establishment and Disendowment Bill. According to the 
 report of the Royal Commission appointed in 1906 to get 
 the facts in the case the Church of England had in Wales 
 about 193,081 communicants while the Non-Conformist 
 bodies had about 550,280 members. The Church of Eng- 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 217 
 
 land was the largest religious body in Wales and had pros- 
 pered and grown in recent years. Between the years 
 1 899-1 908 the number of persons confirmed averaged 
 11,584 as against 10,178 for the previous ten years. The 
 Church in Wales was not a separate organization from 
 the Church of England but a constituent and old part of 
 it for the "Welsh dioceses were sending their proctors 
 to the Canterbury Houses of Convocation more than two 
 and a half centuries before the Welsh counties were send- 
 ing their representatives to the English Parliament." 6 
 Between the Church in Wales and the rest of the Church 
 of England existed full "ecclesiastical, constitutional, 
 legal, and historical identity." The gross income of the 
 Welsh dioceses in 1906 was 556,000 pounds, of which 
 amount 296,000 representing voluntary contributions 
 would be unaffected by the bill ; but of the remaining 260,- 
 000 derived from endowments 175,000 represented na- 
 tional property, so the Liberals declared, and this amount 
 the Bill would take away. The Conservatives and 
 Churchmen denounced the proposal as confiscation pure 
 and simple. They denounced as spurious and false the 
 Liberals' secular argument that the State should have 
 nothing whatever to do with religion; and claimed that 
 those who favored disestablishment of the Church in 
 Wales were working also toward disestablishment of the 
 Church in England. Those favoring the Bill argued that 
 an established church occupied an unfair, privileged posi- 
 tion; that its clergy enjoyed a monopoly of public ecclesi- 
 astical appointments and that its Bishops alone of reli- 
 gious leaders had seats in a House of Parliament; that 
 establishment was prejudicial to national unity; that es- 
 tablishment allowed Parliament a secular body to legis- 
 late in church matters; that disestablishment in Ireland, 
 
218 England's Progress 
 
 the British Dominions and in America had proved bene- 
 ficial; that disestablishment in Wales had been de- 
 manded repeatedly by a majority of its inhabitants and 
 that the Church in Wales was "alien" in its character 
 and represented a mere minority of its people. The 
 trend of the times was with the Liberals. In 19 13 the 
 Bill in slightly modified form passed the Commons for 
 the second time with a good normal majority. By the 
 Lords it was vetoed by a vote of 242 to 88. But in 
 19 14 the disestablishment act was passed. 
 
 Other political problems that commanded considerable 
 attention in England during Asquith's ministry before the 
 Great War opened were tariff reform, extension of the 
 franchise, woman suffrage and armament. England's 
 low revenue tariff, collected on tobacco, tea, spirits, wine 
 and sugar, did not satisfy the tariff reformers. They 
 complained that foreign nations had thrived on protec- 
 tion, building up their industries and manufactures by en- 
 joying the double advantage of having an uninvaded home 
 market and of having a dumping ground for their sur- 
 plus products in free trade England. They proposed to 
 regulate foreign imports so that the maximum of employ- 
 ment might be given to British hands in supplying the 
 British nation with its wants ; to have Great Britain nego- 
 tiate treaties of reciprocity with other states, yielding 
 the British home and colonial markets only for advanta- 
 geous concessions in their possessions; and to establish 
 between England and its colonies and India a permanent 
 policy of Imperial preference in trade. The reformers 
 realized that since England was dependent on other coun- 
 tries for her food-supply the changes they advocated 
 would involve enhancing the price of the necessities of 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 219 
 
 life for the English people, but they argued that this dis- 
 advantage would be more than offset by the advantages 
 that would result from more constant employment, in- 
 creased wages, and the general growing prosperity of a 
 manufacturing nation. But the cause of tariff reform did 
 not strengthen before 19 14. Taxed food and restricted 
 trade were not popular with the consumers and shippers. 
 The woman suffrage and extension of franchise ques- 
 tions were conspicuously in evidence in 19 12. The women 
 of England had had experience in the government of their 
 schools since 1870, being then allowed to sit as members 
 on the school boards, and had exercised the franchise in 
 many other local government matters since 1888 and 
 1894. They sought now the parliamentary vote and of- 
 fered no end of reasons in their favor. They said they 
 should have the ballot because women held large stakes 
 in the country, paid taxes and had distinct interests; be- 
 cause women were intellectually as capable as men and 
 had shown their political capacity by good work on local 
 and municipal councils and by acting as canvassers and 
 speakers to assist men in political campaigns; because 
 about seventy town councils had passed resolutions in 
 favor of woman suffrage; because the enfranchisement of 
 women in New Zealand and Australia had been beneficial 
 and because in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and several of 
 the states of the United States women had been given the 
 vote on the same terms as men. The opponents of the 
 movement declared that the safety of the state would be 
 imperilled by having questions of peace and war decided 
 by those who did not bear arms ; that women outnumber- 
 ing men in England would control the government; that 
 the parliamentary vote would result in placing women in 
 
220 England* s Progress 
 
 Parliament, in the Cabinet and in the judiciary which 
 would be unwise; that the vote was not wanted by a 
 great proportion of the women of England. 
 
 The movement was but one phase of a world-wide 
 progress making on the part of women due to a new 
 economic freedom gained in the Industrial Revolution 
 and to the strength and knowledge acquired through en- 
 joying the same educational advantages as men. In the 
 summer of 19 10 a Woman Suffrage Bill giving to women 
 the franchise on practically the same terms as for men 
 passed its second reading in the House of Commons but 
 was then killed in committee of the whole. To conciliate 
 modern opinion the advocates of the proposal tried to 
 pass a measure conferring the ballot only on the proper- 
 tied classes of women but the proposition was not sup- 
 ported by the Liberal Government. The proposed re- 
 form was opposed as not democratic in spirit. The Prime 
 Minister announced his intention of introducing a 
 straight manhood suffrage bill and of giving the friends 
 of woman suffrage the chance to amend it in their interest. 
 This spelled defeat for the women, for they knew that 
 without the support of the Premier and Cabinet they 
 would carry through no desirable amendment, and they 
 were not agreed among themselves as to the wisdom and 
 desirability of having general adult suffrage which meant 
 to confer the vote on five or six million women, of whom 
 many didn't want it and many more were wholly unpre- 
 pared for it. 7 The suffragists expected better things of 
 the Liberal Government and declared they had been de- 
 ceived by the fair words of the Prime Minister. Dis- 
 appointed and, as they asserted, ignored and dishonorably 
 treated they resorted to militant tactics and demonstra- 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 221 
 
 tions of violence in the hope of forcing the Government 
 to heed their demands. They smashed windows, de- 
 stroyed beautiful paintings, blew up palaces, ruined the 
 mail in the letter boxes, interfered in the Derby throwing 
 to the ground the king's horse, fired vacant buildings, 
 destroyed railway coaches, raided the House of Com- 
 mons, forced their way into the houses of Cabinet officers, 
 fought the police, placed bombs in churches, wrecked golf 
 links, defied the courts, and when sent to jail for their 
 crimes dared the "hunger-strike" attempting to starve 
 themselves as martyrs to the cause. In some cases 
 forcible feeding broke the "hunger strike" but in others 
 it failed. Mr. McKenna, the Home Secretary, thought 
 he had solved the problem when his prisoners' bill was 
 passed allowing him to reincarcerate prisoners who had 
 been released after self-imposed starvation. Under this 
 "cat and mouse act" Mrs. Pankhurst and the leading 
 suffragists were repeatedly arrested, released and re- 
 arrested, seemingly without effect upon their ardor. The 
 suffragists made war only on property but they threatened 
 to take life also if their cause was not fairly considered. 
 They were thoroughly organized, had strong financial 
 backing and could claim able supporters in both of the 
 chief political parties as well as among the Laborites 
 and Socialists. Their threats did not advance their in- 
 terests but their loyal, useful services and noble-spirited 
 sacrifices during the war did. In the Franchise Bill of 
 19 18 they won. 
 
 In view of what later occurred in 19 14, the warnings 
 concerning the necessity of increased armament spoken of 
 in 19 1 2 by men of vision are of interest as well as the 
 way in which England received them. "Few thinking men 
 
222 England's Progress 
 
 can doubt/ said Sir J. D. Rees, "that collision is sooner 
 or later inevitable between Great Britain, which claims, 
 and at present possesses, dominion of the seas, and the 
 German Empire, the redundant population of which is 
 shut out by our navy from all the most desirable parts of 
 the earth. The ultimate struggle is as inevitable as was 
 that between Spain and Britain, or that between Ger- 
 many and France." Germany was believed to have the 
 ambition to acquire Holland and Belgium. If this gain 
 were had the nation would be in a position to seriously 
 injure England's sea-power. Germany steadily enlarged 
 expenditure on new naval construction between the years 
 1905 and 191 1 and this increase in building large ar- 
 moured cruisers, battle-ships and dreadnaughts meant 
 attack on England and necessitated a stronger defense. 
 It was urged that England should be prepared to meet 
 an invasion of 70,000 men and that the military estab- 
 lishment should be raised from 312,000 to 800,000. Eng- 
 land's naval reserve of some 55,000 was declared to be 
 insufficient. The substitution of the German compulsory 
 for the English voluntary principle of military service was 
 urged which would have involved an additional cost of 
 about four millions. 
 
 But the English as a nation were not convinced of the 
 necessity of carrying heavier military burdens. Support- 
 ing a navy about equal to that of both Germany and the 
 United States, they saw no reason for maintaining a big 
 expensive army establishment at home. They opposed 
 compulsory service on the grounds that it was inconsistent 
 with the liberty of the subject and that it hurt business. 
 They claimed that costly preparations for war promoted 
 war and as peace lovers urged arbitration as the proper 
 
Ministries of Campbell-Banner man and Asquith 223 
 
 method of settling International disputes. Such facts re- 
 veal that England was surely not the aggressor in open- 
 ing the Great War. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Hayes: British Social Politics, p. 19. 
 
 2. Alden: Democratic England, p. 5-7. 
 
 3. Turbeville & Howe: Great Britain in the Latest Age, p. 
 
 194-195. 
 
 4. Cheney: Industrial and Social History of England, p. 271. 
 
 5. Moran: The English Government, p. 194. 
 
 6. Roundell, Earl of Selborne: A Defence of the Church of 
 
 England Against Disestablishment, p. 370. 
 
 7. Robinson & Beard: Outlines of European History, p. 521. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CAUSES OF THE WORLD WAR 
 
 Toward the close of the summer of 19 14 suddenly 
 broke out the Great European War. To account for the 
 outbreak numerous features of the condition of Europe 
 must be considered. The immediate occasion of the con- 
 flict was the assassination by a band of conspirators of the 
 Archduke Francis Ferdinand, successor to the Austro- 
 Hungarian throne, and his consort on June 28, 19 14, 
 while they were paying a visit to Sarajevo, the capital of 
 Bosnia, an Austrian province that adjoins Servia. An in- 
 vestigation of the crime by a judicial commission of the 
 Austria-Hungary government, which inquiry however was 
 conducted in secret and on Bosnian territory, led that gov- 
 ernment to the belief that the murder of Archduke Fer- 
 dinand had been systematically planned, possibly with 
 the cognizance of the Servian governmental authorities. 
 Ferdinand was much hated in Servia because he was a pro- 
 nounced and powerful exponent of Austro-Hungarian 
 unity and strength, while the Servians were in sympathy 
 with the revoluntionary organization active in the South- 
 ern provinces of Austria which sought to win for some 
 of the Slav districts independence of Austria and possibly 
 incorporation with Servia. That the murder of an Aus- 
 trian prince should have turned quickly the whole of 
 Europe into a field of war cannot be understood until one 
 takes into account the racial differences, the groupings and 
 alliances and the cross purposes of the leading European 
 nations. 
 
 224 
 
Causes of the World War 225 
 
 Within the Southeastern section of Europe about Aus- 
 tria and the Balkans were and are various races and rem- 
 nants of races that have been fighting one another in in- 
 vasions and counter-invasions of territory since the bar- 
 barian hordes first proceeded forth from the Arian 
 plains of Asia. There has been hatred and conflict be- 
 tween Roman and Teuton; between Teuton and Slav; 
 Slav and Hungarian; Hungarian and Austrian; German 
 and Bohemian; Greek and Bulgarian; Servian and Aus- 
 trian; and between Turk and French and Russian. There 
 have been conflicts between Moslems and Christians; 
 Roman Christians and Greek Christians; Jews and Gen- 
 tiles; Protestants and Catholics; between all sorts of "be- 
 lievers" and "infidels." In this quarter of Europe politi- 
 cal boundaries cut across ancient persistent divisions of 
 race, language and religion. Uprisings have been fre- 
 quent and states are in the making. 
 
 Since 1683 when a Turkish army besieged Vienna — 
 the highwater mark of Turkish conquest in Europe — 
 there has been a steady decline in Ottoman supremacy 
 attended by losses of territory and the rise of new states. 
 In 1699 Hungary broke away from Turkish rule; in 
 1833 Greece; in 1703 Montenegro; in 1856 Roumania; in 
 1830 Servia; in 1878 Bulgaria. In 1774 Russia got land 
 on the Black Sea, and in 1792 advanced to the Dniester 
 River, and to the Pruth River in 18 12. In 188 1 England 
 took Egypt and in 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bos- 
 nia and Herzegovina. In 1881 France got Tunis and 
 in 191 1 Morocco. In 19 12 Italy took Tripoli and as a 
 result of the First and Second Balkan Wars (19 12-19 13) 
 the Balkan States divided among themselves all of Eu- 
 ropean Turkey except Constantinople and a small terri- 
 tory adjoining it on the north. For some years previous 
 
226 England's Progress 
 
 to 19 14 Germany had been getting control in Turkey, 
 furnishing officers to train its army and capital for its 
 business enterprises. 
 
 Germany planned the extension of German influence 
 and control through the Balkans to the iEgean and 
 through Asia Minor to the rich plains of the Tigris and 
 Euphrates Rivers. The Pan-Germanists sought unre- 
 stricted trade-routes in these lands for their surplus man- 
 ufactures. They coveted also control of the harbors of 
 Belgium and Holland. They sought through enlarging 
 their navy to challenge England's supremacy on the seas, 
 and they intended to win a colonial empire to care for 
 their rapidly expanding population. They would build 
 a great confederation of states including Germany, Aus- 
 tria, Hungary, the Balkan States and Turkey; and would 
 construct a grand railway from Constantinople to Bagdad 
 which would tie the great trunk lines leading from the 
 Rhine and Danube valleys to Constantinople and the Per- 
 sian Gulf, thus establishing a short route to India. The 
 aims of Germany were seconded by Austria. Russia 
 wanted the Balkans too and Constantinople and free ac- 
 cess to the Mediterranean through control of the Black 
 Sea, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. She coveted also an 
 outlet to the open sea on the northwest through the Scan- 
 dinavian peninsula and some part of Eastern Prussia with 
 its Baltic seacoast. England was opposed to the estab- 
 lishment of either a German or a Russian authority at 
 Constantinople, lest she should lose her Mediterranean 
 supremacy and her hold on India. She had a dominion 
 that included about 25 per cent of the habitable land of 
 the globe and over 27 per cent of its population. If the 
 Pan-Germanists' dream of naval supremacy and colonial 
 empire ever came true the Briton knew it must be at Eng- 
 
Causes of the World War 227 
 
 land's expense. France in gaining Morocco in 191 1 had 
 almost come to arms with Germany. And since the 
 Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71 the French had talked 
 of a future war of revenge when they should recover 
 their lost provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. As to Servia, 
 its size had been almost doubled by the first (191 2) and 
 second (19 13) Balkan wars at the expense of Turkey 
 and Bulgaria. A part of this added territory came from 
 a strip of land, the Sanjak of Novibazar, which before 
 the recent Balkan wars was a Turkish possession running 
 up between Servia and Montenegro to Austria. The lat- 
 ter state, encouraged too by its ally Germany, had long 
 hoped to gain that strip, since through it a route might 
 be had to the iEgean and the East for the trade of these 
 two nations; but the dividing of that land between Ser- 
 via and Montenegro at the close of the war thwarted 
 Austria in that purpose and placed a solid barrier of Slav 
 domination across the path of German-Austrian ambition. 
 During the last century three ever present active forces 
 have been felt in European international affairs, the 
 steady pressure as of a slow-moving glacier of Russia to 
 the westward, the colonial expansion of England, and the 
 rise of Prussianized Germany. In 19 14 these forces came 
 into open conflict. Then Europe was divided in 19 14 
 into two hostile combinations, heavily armed. The Tri- 
 ple Alliance and the Triple Entente. The former Bis- 
 marck's creation, including Germany, Austria and Italy, 
 had been formed (1881) to defend Germany from the 
 attacks of neighbors west and east, France and Russia, 
 both of whom had lost territory to Prussia in earlier con- 
 flicts. Italy had joined the Alliance because jealous of 
 French expansion along the northern coast of Africa, and 
 because the young nation was flattered at being welcomed 
 
228 England's Progress 
 
 into the circle of the Great Powers. Her traditional 
 enemy, however, was Austria; and since she coveted the 
 ports of Albania and the Austrian ports of Trieste and* 
 Fiume, she was opposed to Austria's Balkan policy of 
 further expansion along the Adriatic. To offset the 
 Triple Alliance there arose ( 1 907 ) the Triple Entente, 
 an agreement for defense between Russia, England and 
 France developed out of the Dual Alliance between 
 France and Russia (1893), the Entente Cordiale be- 
 tween England and France (1904) and the Anglo-Rus- 
 sian Accord of Great Britain and Russia (1907). Both 
 of these groups, and especially the Continental members 
 of the groups, suspicious and fearful began steadily to 
 increase their armaments. Fortifications were strength- 
 ened, strategic military railways constructed, munition fac- 
 tories enlarged, submarines and airships built, rapid fire 
 rifles, machine guns and cannon manufactured and stored 
 in great quantities, plans for military campaigns prepared 
 and information gained through spies of the defenses of 
 the rival powers. In camp and in reserve Germany could 
 muster 4,870,000 trained soldiers and France 3,670,000. 
 These competitive military operations made for war. 
 Twice before 19 14 the outbreak almost occurred. In 
 191 1 when France got Morocco against Germany's will 
 and in 19 13 when Servia at the close of the Second Bal- 
 kan War got increased territory against the will of Aus- 
 tria-Hungary. Had there been no Triple Alliance guar- 
 anteeing Germany's aid to Austria, if attacked, the Aus- 
 trian ultimatum to Servia might not have been so peremp- 
 tory and unreasonable; a satisfactory compliance with it 
 might have been possible. Servia's request for more 
 time for deliberation, or suggestion of settlement by arbi- 
 tration, might have been agreed to and thus war averted ; 
 
Causes of the World War 229 
 
 or per contra, had there been no Triple Entente, giving 
 assurance of aid from England and France to Russia 
 under certain conditions, Russia might not have stiffened 
 Servia's resistance to Austria, an agreement might have 
 been had and the war averted. 
 
 Causative of the war were such forces and factors as 
 the growth of nationalism, the rise of democracy, pres- 
 sure of population, the birth rate, low in France, high in 
 Germany and Russia, trade rivalries, and imperial pro- 
 grams of colonial and naval expansion. In 1871 Ger- 
 many's position in business and commerce was relatively 
 low compared with Great Britain's; but by 1905 she was 
 the chief competitor. Between 1875 and 1905 Great 
 Britain's total import and export business increased 49%, 
 Germany's 120%. As to the merchant marine, the in- 
 crease in tonnage was for Great Britain 76%; for Ger- 
 pany 220%. Germany was set upon building a great 
 colonial empire and determined also to challenge Eng- 
 land's sea supremacy. Von Tirpitz's statement in his Ger- 
 man naval bill of 1900 was pointed straight at England: 
 "to protect Germany's sea trade and colonies . . . there 
 is only one means: Germany must have a battle fleet so 
 strong that even for an adversary with the greatest sea 
 power, a war against it would involve such dangers as to 
 imperil his own position in the world . . . the German 
 battle fleet should be as strong as the greatest naval 
 Power." A race between the two nations in naval arma- 
 ments costing many millions followed. 
 
 The German character and Kultur were chief factors 
 in producing this war. Proud of their industrial and com- 
 mercial progress, puffed up with their learning and science, 
 boastful of their educational schemes of specialization and 
 efficiency, unbalanced by reason of victories at arms over 
 
230 England's Progress 
 
 Denmark, Austria and France, unchristian, materialistic, 
 cynical, conceited, worshipping force, glorifying war, and 
 declaring the Teutons superior to all other races and di- 
 vinely appointed to rule the world their leaders looked 
 forward to and courted battle, and in particular at some 
 time with England. Not only the militarists, but accord- 
 ing to a statement of the Kaiser the majority of the 
 German people were hostile to England about 1908. For 
 some years it had been the habit of the German navy to 
 drink a toast "to the Day," which meant in the minds of 
 the naval officers the time when war should be declared 
 against England. By the teachings and writings of 
 prominent University professors and army officers such as 
 Professor Treitschke and General Bernhardi the German 
 nation had been taught to think of war as a good, as a 
 necessity in a nation's proper development, and to believe 
 that Germany's destined expansion would ere long pro- 
 duce conflict with England. In the teachings of the Pan- 
 Germanists, Great Britain was the great "Robber State" 
 that had acquired a fourth of the globe by filching it from 
 weak, uncivilized races; that arrogantly assumed a lord- 
 ship of all seas; and that had the temerity to undertake 
 to dictate to other Powers the boundaries of their states 
 and dependencies. Her numerous possessions had not 
 been won by her own strength, they said, but had merely 
 fallen to her as the results of timely and selfish inter- 
 ference between other nations. Her wont had been to 
 build up coalitions and alliances against any power of 
 Europe that promised to become dominant, furnishing 
 the allies money who did the fighting. She was always 
 present at the settlement of the conflict, playing the role 
 of arbiter in the interest of preserving the balance of 
 power but always to her own advantage and to the injury 
 
Causes of the World War 231 
 
 of the strongest European nation. So she had dealt with 
 Spain, France, Holland; she now sought to injure Ger- 
 many. They claimed that England's greatness was in part 
 a gift of Germany; that through Prussia's assistance 
 Great Britain had won victories over Louis XIV and Na- 
 poleon; and that but for Prussia's engagement of Eng- 
 land's continental enemies Great Britain would not have 
 been able during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) 
 to oust France from the new world, to win naval suprem- 
 acy and enlarge her colonial possessions. England's rule 
 over varied peoples was an unrighteous rule, justly hated 
 by the subjects. To them England was a hypocritical, 
 Pharisaical nation, proclaiming its mission to disseminate 
 everywhere ideas of liberty, justice, and democracy yet 
 actually guilty meanwhile of the most criminal acts of 
 suppression, intolerance and tyranny. In support of the 
 charge were cited the revolt of the American colonies, 
 the struggle of the Boers, the treatment of Ireland and 
 the subjugation of India. The British Empire was a pre- 
 tentious sham; it lacked inherent strength they said. 
 Widely scattered its various portions, divided by oceans, 
 inhabited by diverse races, lacking genuine unity and hom- 
 ogeneity: its members were held together only by the 
 British navy. Were this defensive band once severed the 
 colonies and dependencies would fall away from England 
 like leaves from a withered branch. The English peo- 
 ple were spoken of as unvirile and decadent. Snugly en- 
 sconced in their island they had lost their martial quali- 
 ties and could not successfully contend with a strong foe. 
 Their imperial glory would depart as was the case with 
 Rome. The Teutons had overthrown the decadent Em- 
 pire of the Caesars in the fifth century, and brought low 
 pretentious Austria and pretentious France in the eigh- 
 
232 England's Progress 
 
 teenth and nineteenth centuries. They would now humble 
 England. Prussia had to fight the smaller German states, 
 Austria and France in order to expand into a mighty 
 nation; and so the German Empire to realize its colonial 
 ambitions would have to fight to a finish with Great Brit- 
 ain, the nation that had already staked off as her own 
 most of the sparsely occupied and undeveloped lands of 
 the earth. 
 
 And according to the Teutonic philosophy for the Ger- 
 mans to cease to fight was to cease to live. They said that 
 Germany had more people than it could profitably employ, 
 that the area suitable for tillage had been almost ex- 
 hausted, as well as the possibilities of increase from the 
 employment of scientific agricultural processes, that in- 
 dustries and manufactures had grown at a rate far in 
 excess of the domestic needs, that more lands and mar- 
 kets had to be had somewhere for her surplus population 
 and manufactured products; that these could only be had 
 at the expense of some other power and that this meant 
 war eventually with England. According to their Re- 
 ligion of Valor he will and should take who can. War 
 had been presented to the German mind as profitable, 
 educative, glorious, as a paying business and one too that 
 developed in men the highest virtues. The territorial 
 accessions, the war indemnities, such as the 5,000,000,000 
 francs gotten at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian 
 war, proved that war for Germany had been a gainful 
 occupation. War, they preached, disciplined the spirit 
 of man, elevated him above materialism, gave him vision, 
 and developed endurance, self-sacrifice, courage and like 
 heroic virtues. General Bernhardi proclaimed that 
 "might is right and that right is decided by war." "God 
 will see to it," said Treitschke, Professor of Modern His- 
 tory in the University of Berlin, "that war always recurs 
 
Causes of the World War 233 
 
 as a drastic medicine for the human race." He taught 
 too that the leadership of the Teuton was a part of the 
 divine order, and that Providence was leading his coun- 
 trymen straight on to a conflict with the British. The 
 combat would issue, he believed, in the triumph of Ger- 
 man culture, "the realization of the German world-vision 
 in all the phases and departments of human life and en- 
 ergy; in religion, poetry, science, art, politics, and social 
 endeavor," the triumph of "truth instead of falsehood in 
 the deepest and gravest preoccupations of the human 
 mind; German sincerity instead of British hypocrisy." ' 
 But when the looked-for war with England should come 
 the Germans hoped to have it with Great Britain alone — 
 the German army and navy against the British army and 
 navy — and not as it turned out to be Germany against 
 well-nigh the whole of Europe and America. They were 
 not expecting the Canadians, Australians, Irish and In- 
 dians to muster as they did to England's aid. They 
 planned to whip France and Russia first and were bitterly 
 disappointed when England interfered. They asserted, 
 though falsely, that England acted treacherously toward 
 Germany, that at the first she talked peace, but all along 
 really planned war, that she only waited until Germany's 
 enemies were numerous and strong enough to make, as she 
 felt, certain Germany's defeat, and then, in keeping with 
 her habit, added her mighty weight of hostility with the 
 hope of utterly crushing Germany. The bitterness of 
 their hatred was reflected in sermon and hymn.* 
 
 * "You will we hate with a lasting hate, 
 We will never forego our hate, 
 Hate by water and hate by land, 
 Hate of the head and hate of the hand, 
 Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown 
 Hate of seventy millions, choking down, 
 We love as one, we hate as one, 
 
 We have one foe and one alone " 
 
 ENGLAND l a 
 
234 England's Progress 
 
 But the responsibility of the 19 14 outbreak can- 
 not be laid at the door of England. Several things 
 so attest: The unpreparedness of her army and the facts 
 — that her Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Sir Edward 
 Grey, urged Servia to give Austria the fullest satisfaction 
 in case investigation showed Servian officers involved in 
 the Sarajevo crime so as to prevent an Austrian attack 
 that would lead to Russia's coming in to support Servia; 
 that he proposed that Germany, France, Italy and Great 
 Britain hold a conference to find a way out of the trouble 
 but Germany would not agree to this method of media- 
 tion, being unwilling to force Austria into a settlement 
 by arbitration; that he tried to restrain Russia's mobili- 
 zation in the interest of Servia ; that he held off support 
 to Russia and France after they began war ; and that he 
 labored for peace until the neutrality of Belgium was 
 violated, an aggressive act on Germany's part that was 
 contrary to her treaty obligations and that threatened 
 England's life. The German Ambassador to London, 
 Prince Lichnowsky declared, "We encouraged the Aus- 
 trian Foreign Minister to attack Servia although Ger- 
 man interests were not involved. We rejected the British 
 proposals of mediation — although Servia had accepted 
 almost the whole of the ultimatum. We sent an ulti- 
 matum to Petrograd merely because of the Russian mobi- 
 lization, . . . and we declared war on Russia although 
 the Czar pledged his word that he would not order a 
 man to march as long as negotiations were pending. In 
 view of the above facts it is no wonder that the whole 
 of the civilized world, outside Germany, places the entire 
 responsibility of the World War upon our shoulders. 
 The Teutons challenging England's sea supremacy met 
 men determined and unafraid." 
 
Causes of the World War 235 
 
 "Behold," they cry, "she is grown soft and strength- 
 less, 
 
 All her proud memories changed to fear and fret." 
 
 Say, thou, who hast watched through ages that are length- 
 less 
 
 Whom have I feared, and when did I forget? 
 
 What sons of mine have shunned thy whorls and races? 
 Have I not reared for thee time and again, 
 And bid go forth to share thy fierce embraces, 
 Sea-ducks, sea-wolves, sea-rovers, and sea-men! 
 
 Wherefore, O Sea, I standing thus before thee, 
 Stretch forth my hands unto thy surge and say: 
 "When they come forth to seek this empire o'er thee, 
 And I go forth to meet them — on that day 
 
 God grant to us the old Armada weather, 
 
 The winds that rip, the heavens that stoop and lour — 
 
 Not till the Sea and England sink together, 
 
 Shall they be masters! Let them boast that hour!' 3 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Cramb: England and Germany, p. 123. 
 
 2. Ernest Lissauer: Chant of Hate against England. 
 3. R. E. Vernede: England to the Sea. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ENGLAND'S ENTRANCE INTO AND SHARE 
 
 IN THE GREAT WAR 
 
 ASQUITH 1914-1916, LLOYD GEORGE, 
 
 1916-1921 
 
 On June 28, 19 14, Archduke Ferdinand and his wife 
 were assassinated at Sarajevo, the Capital of Bosnia. On 
 July 23, 19 14, the Austrian Government, after investi- 
 gating the circumstances of the murder, sent to the Ser- 
 vian Government a document declaring "that the murder 
 was conceived at Belgrade, that the murderers received 
 the arms and bombs with which they were equipped from 
 Servian officers and that the transportation of the crimi- 
 nals and their arms to Bosnia was arranged and carried 
 out by leading Servian frontier officials." Ten demands 
 were made of the Servian Government, a reply to which 
 would be expected within forty-eight hours. So dicta- 
 torial was the tone of this state communication, so brief 
 was the time allowed for respecting its requirements, and 
 so extreme were its demands, it appeared as an ulti- 
 matum to be almost a declaration of war. On July 24, 
 Servia in conjunction with Russia asked Austria for an 
 extension of time for making answer but this request 
 was denied. In her reply of July 25, made ten minutes 
 before the time limit expired, Servia consented to all the 
 conditions and apologies demanded except the specific 
 requirement that Austrian officials should be allowed to 
 participate in the investigation of the crime the Servian 
 
 236 
 
England's Entrance into the Great War 237 
 
 Government was to conduct on Servian soil; a demand 
 that a nation could hardly allow without injury to its 
 independence and dignity. "The Servian reply," said 
 Sir Edward Grey, "involved the greatest humiliation to 
 Servia that I have ever seen a country undergo." But 
 it did not appease Austria. On the 27th the Austrian 
 Government announced that Servia's reply was "filled 
 with the spirit of dishonesty" and that the Servian Gov- 
 ernment was not trying to put an end to intrigues against 
 the Austria-Hungarian monarchy. This hostile state- 
 ment aroused Russia whose Government at once notified 
 Austria (July 27th) that it would oppose any invasion of 
 Servia's territory by Austria. Immediately Germany 
 was heard from. In a semi-official statement it made ob- 
 jection to any outside power interfering in the Austria- 
 Servian quarrel. It was really backing Austria. The 
 British Foreign Secretary proposed that an attempt be 
 made to find a way out of the entanglement through the 
 mediation of a Conference of Ambassadors to be held 
 in London, representing France, Italy, Germany and Eng- 
 land. The proposal was welcomed by Italy and France 
 but was declined by both Germany and Austria. The lat- 
 ter country would brook, no delay and forthwith issued 
 (July 28th) its declaration of war. This at once started 
 the mobilization of the Russian army, the Czar order- 
 ing by an imperial ukase all reservists to the colors July 
 29th. The next day Germany sent to the Russian Gov- 
 ernment a demand to stop its mobilization, and stated 
 that a reply to its order was expected within twenty-four 
 hours. Germany's threat brought from England forth- 
 with (July 30th) the significant notification that in case 
 a general conflict should occur Great Britain "could not 
 stand aloof and see the balance of power in Europe de- 
 
238 England's Progress 
 
 stroyed." Russia paid no attention to Germany's ulti- 
 matum, but continued the rapid mobilization of her army. 
 Germany then issued its declaration of war, August 1st, 
 provoking thereby immediately the general mobilization 
 order of France, Russia's ally. Germany counted on 
 England's keeping out of the conflict. England was asked 
 to remain neutral on the condition that Germany would 
 promise not to attack the northern or western coasts of 
 France nor to molest the maritime commerce of France; 
 but to this England would not agree. Nor would Eng- 
 land consent to Germany's entering with her army Bel- 
 gian territory in order to get at France. The neutrality 
 of Belgium had been guaranteed by the Great Powers, 
 Germany included, by three treaties, the first made in 
 1 83 1, the second in 1839 and the third in 1870. Eng- 
 land's consent to the passage was vainly sought by the 
 pledge that Germany would indemnify Belgium after the 
 war for all losses and would "safeguard the integrity and 
 sovereignty of Belgium." The formal assurance was 
 given that even in case of armed conflict with Belgium 
 Germany would under no pretext whatever annex Bel- 
 gian territory. But Germany decided to attack France 
 through Belgium, notwithstanding treaty obligations. 
 August 3rd, the German Government sent to Belgium its 
 ultimatum. This led the Belgian and French Govern- 
 ments at once to declare, martial law and King Albert of 
 Belgium to telegraph King George of England for diplo- 
 matic intervention to safeguard the integrity of Belgium. 
 The next day came an ultimatum from England to Ger- 
 many demanding that a promise to respect Belgium's 
 neutrality should be given by 12 o'clock that night. The 
 promise was not given and England forthwith issued its 
 declaration of war against Germany August 4th. The 
 
England's Entrance into the Great War 239 
 
 German army then crossed the border and opened fire 
 on Belgian forts. Germany's attack on Liege, Belgium, 
 August 5th, soon "turned all Europe into an armed 
 camp." President Wilson's offer of the good offices of 
 the United States to effect a peaceful settlement availed 
 nothing. August 6th Austria-Hungary declared war on 
 Russia; August 8th Portugal took Great Britain's side; 
 August 9th Servia declared war against Germany; Au- 
 gust 10th France declared war on Austria; and August 
 13th Austria and Great Britain each declared war on the 
 other. On August 7th the German Government sought 
 to win Italy as the third member of the Triple Alliance to 
 the support of Austria and Germany, but Italy held firm 
 to her neutrality claiming that she was not bound by that 
 Alliance in this instance since Germany and Austria were 
 engaged in an aggressive, not defensive, war. In May, 
 19 1 5, Italy took the side of the Allies. A few weeks 
 after the opening of hostilities Japan came to England's 
 aid in keeping with the terms of the Anglo-Japanese 
 treaty of 1905. Turkey and Bulgaria sided later with 
 Germany and Austria. 
 
 For four years (1914-1918) warfare the fiercest and 
 on the most gigantic scale was waged involving in some 
 way nearly all the nations of the globe. Against the 
 four nations, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and 
 Bulgaria, or against some one of the four war was waged 
 by twenty-six nations. Five more nations, Peru, Bolivia, 
 Santo Domingo and Uruguay, severed diplomatic rela- 
 tions with some member of the German Alliance. Only 
 fifteen of the nations of the earth, and these minor ones, 
 maintained their neutrality, namely Switzerland, Persia, 
 Sweden, Norway, Spain, Netherlands, Paraguay, Salva- 
 dor, Colombia, Chile, Denmark, Abyssinia, Argentina, 
 
240 England's Progress 
 
 Mexico, and Venezuela; and these all felt the evil effects 
 of the war in various vexing restrictions on their com- 
 merce and life. The total casualties of the war were fully 
 40,000,000 not counting the victims of massacre, de- 
 portation, famine and epidemics though such losses are in 
 large degree by-products of the war. In the conflict, there 
 were over 7,600,000 killed, over 6,000,000 permanently 
 disabled and over 12,500,000 less severely wounded. 
 More persons were killed and maimed in this one war 
 probably than in all the battles of mediaeval and modern 
 history. About 60,000,000 men were in arms, the Cen- 
 tral Powers furnishing over 19,500,000, the Allied and 
 Associated Powers over 39,600,000. Of the 60,000,- 
 000 one-eighth were killed and one-tenth were made 
 human wrecks. Thousands upon thousands of women, 
 children and decrepit old men were made dependent, 
 hungry and homeless ; billions of dollars' worth of prop- 
 erty were ruthlessly destroyed; costly cruisers and hun- 
 dreds of merchant vessels with their precious cargoes were 
 sent to the bottom of the sea ; rich cities were pillaged and 
 burnt; and majestic cathedrals with their precious mas- 
 terpieces of art and libraries with their treasured orig- 
 inal manuscripts and rare volumes were bombarded into 
 heaps of ruin. Using siege guns, torpedo boats, subma- 
 rines, Zeppelins, airships, dum dum bullets, turpinine, 
 shells that bursting scatter molten metal and poisonous 
 gases, bombs and arrows dropped from balloons and 
 other air craft, the combatants fought in air and water, 
 above and under the earth. The passions of peoples were 
 stirred as never before. The money cost of the war was 
 over $186,300,000,000. At times the daily cost of sup- 
 porting the armies was $60,000,000. 
 
 The navy excepted, England was unprepared on enter- 
 
 
England's Entrance into the Great War 241 
 
 ing the war. The appeals of Lord Roberts in 19 13 for 
 universal military service as a defence against the threat- 
 ening militarism of Germany fell on deaf ears. Labor 
 was against the plan and political parties disfavored the 
 diversion of funds from the navy to the army that such 
 a plan involved. Compulsory service was denounced by 
 the War Minister "as a political and military disaster." 
 The country was satisfied with its voluntary Territorial 
 Force for Home defence of 263,000. Public sentiment 
 was divided as to England's duty when the conflict started 
 on the continent. Leading Liberals and Radicals and such 
 journals as the Daily News vigorously advocated neu- 
 trality. Lord Morley and Mr. Burns, Cabinet members, 
 resigned when England entered the war. About the 
 country too were pacifists, conscientious objectors and 
 non-militant socialists of varied degree. But the great 
 bulk of the people felt that Russia and France should be 
 supported by England. The great majority of the La- 
 borites and Liberals, the Unionists, the Ulsterites and 
 Irish Nationalists all backed the Government in its dec- 
 laration of war. As the fight progressed, and the atro- 
 cious, brutal nature of German warfare, as conducted in 
 Belgium, became known, and the immensity of Ger- 
 many's military preparation and plans were revealed, all 
 classes and parties saw that England was in the right, 
 sank their differences, postponed their political disputes 
 and presented a solid front to the foe. "Britain would 
 not sheathe the sword," said Premier Asquith, "until 
 Belgium had recovered all and more than all that she had 
 sacrificed, until France was adequately secured against 
 the menace of aggression, until the rights of the smaller 
 nationalities were placed on an unassailable foundation, 
 until the military dominion of Prussia was fully and 
 
242 England's Progress 
 
 finally destroyed." "We are fighting for a worthy pur- 
 pose," declared King George, "for treaty obligations 
 . . . for the protection of the public law of Europe." 
 "Duty," "Patriotism," "Sacrifice" became the national 
 watchwords, and so devoted became popular spirit that 
 universal conscription was cheerfully supported. 
 
 Energetic conduct of the war necessitated Cabinet 
 changes. Premier Asquith formed a Coalition Ministry, 
 bringing in eight Unionists and one Laborite in his Cabi- 
 net of twenty-two, set up also a special War-Committee 
 of six ministers of which he was chairman and added 
 a half hundred other committees in charge of various war 
 matters. Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Excheq- 
 uer was transferred to the new department, Ministry of 
 Munitions, and becoming dissatisfied with Asquith's dila- 
 tory "wait and see" policy and seeing the necessity of" 
 speeding up the military preparations if the war was 
 to be won he dared to propose a radical change in or- 
 ganization. He demanded that absolute control of the 
 conduct of the war should be put into the hands of a 
 committee of four of which he was a member which 
 should have daily sessions. Mr. Asquith was to be only 
 "an advisory and consultative member." As the Prime 
 Minister would not agree to thus "efface himself" Lloyd 
 George resigned December 5, 19 16, and as the Premier 
 was conscious that he could not carry on the war without 
 this Minister of Munitions he resigned. The King sent 
 for the Unionist leader, Mr. Bonar Law, but as Mr. As- 
 quith refused to cooperate with him as Chief and he 
 knew the hour and nation demanded the Welsh states- 
 man he stood aside and the commission went to Lloyd 
 George. 
 
 Wonderful the career of this British Chieftain. He 
 
England's Entrance into the Great War 243 
 
 was born in Manchester, January 17, 1863, his father a 
 school teacher sprung from the farming people of South 
 Wales. David at the age of three witnessed the sale at 
 auction of his widowed mother's household effects. The 
 widow and her two children were to have their home now 
 with her brother, Richard Lloyd, a shoemaker and a 
 Non-Conformist at Llanystumdy, a village of North 
 Wales. The uncle instructed the boy, struggling himself 
 over the elements of French and Latin that he might 
 teach the apt pupil. He spent his year's savings to give 
 him a legal education. When at twenty-one David had 
 passed his examinations and was now a solicitor he had 
 not three guineas with which to buy the solicitor's official 
 robe. He quickly earned it at desk work. Courage, 
 ambition and vision belong to this man. As a boy of 
 twelve he defied the teacher and minister who tried to 
 make him say the creed in church. When the Rector 
 refused permission to bury an old Non-Conformist in 
 the church yard by the side of his daughter's grave, the 
 young solicitor counseled his clients to tear down the 
 railings, go in and inter the remains by force if necessary. 
 The case having been taken to court and appealed until 
 it reached the final tribunal, the decision of the Lord 
 Chief Justice declared the young solicitor right in law. 
 Interesting this abstract from his diary when at the age 
 of seventeen on a trip to London he saw for the first time 
 the House of Commons: "Went to Houses of Parlia- 
 ment. Very much disappointed with them. ... I will 
 say I eyed the assembly in the spirit in which William 
 the Conqueror eyed England on his visit to Edward the 
 Confessor — as the reign of his future domain. O 
 Vanity!" Before thirty he was a member of this body, 
 at forty he was a Cabinet Minister, at forty-five he be- 
 
244 England's Progress 
 
 came Chancellor of the Exchequer and at fifty-five Prime 
 Minister. 
 
 Whether as Minister of Munitions or as Chief of the 
 government Lloyd George ever speeded up the war ma- 
 chinery, declaring "unless we quicken our movement, 
 damnation will fall on the sacred cause for which so 
 much gallant blood has flowed." He created his War 
 Cabinet of five, composed of himself a Liberal, and of 
 three Unionists and one Laborite. General Smuts of 
 South Africa was later admitted to this inner council. 
 The Unionist chief, Bonar Law, was made Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. 
 New departments for control of shipping, of food, la- 
 bor, pensioning, enforcement of the blockade, public 
 service and the like were multiplied until the ministry 
 numbered eighty-eight. New administrative committees 
 with special activities were set up by the hundreds. By 
 several new Military Service Bills, compulsion to serve 
 was imposed eventually on all men physically fit and 
 not exempted on account of occupation in essential indus- 
 tries from eighteen to fifty years of age. Railroads 
 canals, mines, ship yards and munition factories were 
 taken over by the government and regulation of prices, 
 wages and output in manufactures and of the uses to 
 which land may be put in agriculture was undertaken by 
 the state. Rationing and price-fixing of food staples fol- 
 lowed. In every department of economic life, whether 
 production, manufacture, exchange, transportation, 
 means of communication or conscription military needs 
 were given priority over civilian. Trade Unons were led 
 to promise no strikes during the war and their restricted 
 rules concerning skilled labor were modfied in the inter- 
 ests of increase of products so that by a process of so- 
 
England's Entrance into the Great War 245 
 
 called "Dilution" unskilled workers and women were 
 allowed to do tasks or parts of tasks which had been for- 
 bidden them formerly but for which they were after a 
 little training quite well fitted. Profits and speculation 
 were restricted and the liquor trade was limited by special 
 acts. The hours of sale were curtailed, treating and 
 credit forbidden and the sale of spirits of excessive 
 strengths was prohibited. Temperance was promoted 
 too by providing facilities for non-alcoholic refresh- 
 ments. By income taxes, graduated super-taxes and 
 excess profits taxes as high as 70 per cent and over 
 the annual revenues of the government were quad- 
 rupled, yet the expenditures were on such a tremendous 
 scale the national debt was increased ten-fold. Great 
 Britain was taking the fourth part of every well-to-do 
 citizen's income and spent some years $300,000,000 on 
 the army, $100,000,000 on the navy, and $2,000,- 
 000,000 in the work of the munition department. In 
 the munition factories were employed soon 2,000,000 
 workers, one-tenth of whom were women, many working 
 at times twelve hours a day seven days in the week. The 
 annual output of munitions of every sort — rifles, car- 
 tridges, machine guns, howitzers — multiplied thirty-fold. 
 By the early spring of 19 16 an army of 4,000,000 men 
 had been raised, and among them were the very flower 
 of British youth, sons of the nobility and of the profes- 
 sional, literary and University classes. Dotting the coun- 
 try were rude recruiting stations and training camps. At 
 docks, store houses and depots and railroad sidings were 
 armies of laborers busy handling rations, fuel, horses, 
 fodder and all sorts of army supplies. Recreation huts, 
 cinema theatres, lecture courses, schools for training 
 motor drivers, hospitals for animals and for men, can- 
 
246 England's Progress 
 
 teen stations, religious services, railroads, warehouses 
 miles long for the supply bases all had to be provided. 
 Drilling, marching and counter-marching everywhere, 
 "tramp, tramp, along the land; tramp, tramp, along the 
 sea." "An endless spectacle of gun-carriages, naval 
 turrets, torpedo-tubes, army railway-carriages, small 
 Hotchkiss guns for merchant ships, seem 4 s to be going on 
 forever, and in the tool-making shops the output has risen 
 from forty-four thousand to three million a year." 1 
 
 England may well be proud of her part in this con- 
 flict. She did all that could be done to prevent war; she 
 entered to maintain her word of honor, and once in she 
 bent all her powers to the task, determined to win. As 
 to men, arms and money, Great Britain furnished 8,654,- 
 467 men, over a fifth of the mobilized forces of the 
 Allied and Associated Powers. Of these, 5,704,416 came 
 from Great Britain and Ireland; 640,886 from Canada; 
 416,809 from Australia; 220,099 from New Zealand; 
 136,070 from South Africa; 1,401,350 from India and 
 134,837 from the other colonies. 2 Their casualties all 
 told — wounded, missing and killed — were 3,060,616. 
 Some 850,000 were killed. The British furnished 
 about one-fifth of the money expended. Their war debt 
 is about $35,000,000,000, of which roughly speaking a 
 fifth was loaned to the Allies. About $750,000,000 was 
 loaned to the Dominions. As to the fighting the British 
 were in the thick of it from start to finish. While a few 
 costly mistakes were made at the first and defeats were 
 not uncommon in the earlier engagements none the less 
 their naval and military record on the whole was noble 
 and superb. 
 
 Unaware of the magnitude of the enemy's forces and 
 of the gigantic scale on which warfare was to be con- 
 
England's Entrance into the Great War 247 
 
 ducted the British were slow in making adequate prepara- 
 tions. The six divisions of regulars, 60,000 sent to 
 Belgium, were not equal to holding back the horde of 
 German soldiers with their cavalry and armored motor 
 cars, heavy cannon and siege guns moving on with the 
 momentum of an avalanche. After a hot contest at 
 Mons (August 23-24, 1914) General French had to 
 withdraw. The battle and the six days' retreat back into 
 France cost the British 230 officers and 13,413 men. 
 Mismanagement by the governmental heads in London 
 and lack of men and equipment caused the loss of Ant- 
 werp to the Germans and explains why the British failed 
 to extend their battle lines northward promptly. The 
 Germans hurried to try to win the Channel Ports, Calais 
 and Dunkirk and thus cut off England from the most di- 
 rect communication with France. The bloody battles of 
 Flanders followed (October 17-November 15) and the 
 fearful losses at Ypres and along the Yser. The com- 
 bined forces of Belgians, French and British under the 
 command of General Foch, numbering only 150,000 — 
 some of the troops raw and untried with inadequate 
 equipment, lacking shells and heavy artillery — success- 
 fully withstood the repeated attacks of half a million thor- 
 oughly trained German soldiers provided with the finest 
 machine guns and cannon. On the coast the Belgians 
 checked the enemy's advance by cutting the dikes of the 
 Yser and flooding the lowlands. At Ypres the British had 
 to fight against terrible odds and were nearly annihilated. 
 The German's effort cost them the loss of 150,000 men. 
 The Gallipoli Campaign was most disastrous. Turkey 
 having taken the side of Germany and Austria, Russia 
 was cut off from getting food and war supplies from her 
 western Allies. Could the Dardanelles be forced and 
 
248 England's Progress 
 
 Constantinople taken by the Allies it would end the Pan- 
 German dream of control in the Balkans and Asia Minor. 
 In February, 191 5, the French and British warships made 
 attack, losing two ships and gaining entrance to the 
 straits. Another bombardment the next day might have 
 succeeded since the Turks' ammunition was about out; 
 but those attacking were unaware of the fact: and since 
 the rapid current, floating mines, and hidden guns of the 
 fortifications were feared, they withdrew. In April the 
 British sent an expedition of 200,000 men, mainly Aus- 
 tralian and New Zealand forces, to assist in the attack. 
 The plan was known to the Germans and a force of 250,- 
 000 well-armed Turks under German officers was gath- 
 ered for defence. The invaders were landed on the pen- 
 insula but the barbed wire entanglements, the steep rocky 
 hills, the lack of water, the scorching July heat and the 
 resistance of the Turks, along with the submarine at- 
 tacks on the supporting gunboats brought the heroic 
 effort to naught. 
 
 In December the forces were withdrawn. In this in- 
 glorious campaign the toll of British dead was 26,000 
 and the disabled and broken in health numbered 89,000. 
 Bulgaria judged from the outcome that it was to her in- 
 terest to join with the Central Powers. The fact that 
 two German cruisers from Messina escaped the British 
 patrol in the Mediterranean and got through the Dar- 
 danelles to the Black Sea at the opening of conflict was 
 of big effect. Had the British pursued and captured them 
 possibly Turkey would have been kept from uniting with 
 Germany and access to Russia by the Western Powers 
 would have been maintained. 
 
 In November, 19 14, occurred a naval disaster at Cor- 
 onel off the coast of Chile. Admiral Craddock with four 
 
England's Entrance into the Great War 249 
 
 armoured vessels of inferior type dared attack Admiral 
 von Spee's squadron of five first rate cruisers. In the 
 combat Craddock, 1600 men and three ships were lost. 
 But on December 6 following the English got vengeance. 
 Admiral Sturdee with seven powerful ships was de- 
 spatched to engage von Spee. He found the squadron 
 near the Falkland Islands and in a running battle sent 
 von Spee and four of his ships to the bottom. 
 
 To British arms during this war must be credited not 
 a few great achievements. The holding of a good long 
 section of that three hundred mile line of entrenchments 
 extending from the sea to Switzerland year in and year 
 out; the noble five days' struggle in the Second Battle 
 of Ypres (April 22, 1915) when the Germans in their 
 savage thrust to take Calais, throwing international law 
 to the winds in making use of poison gas were blocked 
 by the unyielding Canadians though losing one in three 
 of their men; the relief of Verdun in the First Battle of 
 the Somme (July 1— November 17, 19 16) where the 
 soil was mixed with the blood of nearly a million men 
 killed or wounded; and where the forces under General 
 Haig, though suffering the first day a loss of 50,000, 
 steadily fought on and on until they had ousted the Ger- 
 mans from their perfected entrenchments and with their 
 armored land cruisers the "tanks" put the enemy on the 
 defensive and set a new pace in the strife, especially in 
 dealing with trenches and barbed wire entanglements; 
 the bold taking of Vimy Ridge (April 9, 1917) by the 
 Canadians that secured control of a district of Northern 
 France rich in coal; the capture of 50,000 prisoners and 
 immense stores of munitions in several attacks along 
 with the French in the late spring of 19 17 and the break- 
 ing through the Hindenburg line at one place; the valor 
 
250 England's Progress 
 
 displayed in the battle of Picardy (March 21-April 1) 
 where the British though outnumbered three to one held 
 back the German hosts until, with the arrival of French 
 troops, they thwarted the enemy in his plans to capture 
 Amiens, reach a highway to Paris and drive a wedge 
 between the British and French armies; the barring the 
 way to the Channel Ports in the battle fought in Flan- 
 ders near the cities of Ypres and Arras when an over- 
 whelming force moved forward April 9, 19 18, against the 
 British, pressing them on until they had to fight with the 
 desperation of an animal at bay; and their heavy blows 
 at Montdidier (August 8, 19 18) and smashing of the 
 Hindenburg line, a part of the final overwhelming Allied 
 offensive launched by General Foch when the French at- 
 tacked at Soissons and the Americans took the St. Mihiel 
 Salient and cleared the Argonne Forest; the retaking 
 after an earlier defeat, of Kut-el-Amara, the capture of 
 the City of Bagdad (March 11) and occupation of the 
 Euphrates valley which defeated the German Berlin- 
 Bagdad railway scheme; the taking of Jaffa, the seaport 
 of Jerusalem, and the capture of the Holy City (Decem- 
 ber 10) by General Allenby who had to storm the Turk- 
 ish positions. In accounting for the collapse of the Ger- 
 man defense the stubborn, valorous Briton must be re- 
 membered along with the masterful strategist, Foch, the 
 fresh American army of 1,500,000, and the spirited 
 French. 
 
 Naval battles were few. On August 24, 19 14, oc- 
 curred the Battle of Heligoland Bight, when a part of 
 the German fleet attacked some British patrol vessels. 
 Four fast battleships rushed to the aid of the scout ships 
 and succeeded in sinking three cruisers and two destroyers 
 of the enemy. On January 24, 19 15, Admiral Beatty in 
 
England's Entrance into the Great War 251 
 
 the Battle of Dogger Bank sank the Blucher and badly 
 battered two other German cruisers that were attempt- 
 ing to raid the English coast. On May 31, 19 16, in the 
 Battle of Jutland — the one great sea-fight of the war — 
 the German fleet handled very roughly Admiral Beatty's 
 squadron of light armored cruisers. Admiral Beatty 
 stuck to the unequal contest until the British Grand Fleet 
 under Admiral Jellicoe arrived. But when Admiral Jel- 
 licoe approached near nightfall the German ships man- 
 aged to escape in the darkness and mists back to their 
 mine-protected bases. The British lost three battle cruis- 
 ers and fifteen other vessels. The Germans proclaimed it 
 a victory; but since they had failed in their purposes to 
 break through the blockade and to destroy England's 
 naval superiority, since their losses were fully as great as 
 the English losses, since the crews of the German ships 
 lost heart for such war and since the next day the British 
 vessels were out picking up survivors and courting further 
 fighting while the German fleet never dared come out 
 of their havens again, the British were actually the vic- 
 tors. 
 
 The services of the British Navy in this war cannot 
 be overestimated. It kept bottled up the German fleet; 
 it hunted down the German raiders preying on commerce; 
 it laid the mine fields furnishing coast protection; it main- 
 tained the blockade of German ports cutting off food sup- 
 plies and needed raw materials; it prevented the home 
 return and entrance into the army of many thousands 
 of German subjects abroad; it furnished safe convoy for 
 transports laden with food, fuel, ammunition, army sup- 
 plies and troops along the sea routes from England, the 
 Dominions and America to France; it kept its trawlers 
 busy in mine sweeping; it overcame in time the destruc- 
 
252 England's Progress 
 
 tive submarines, being able with depth bombs and other 
 inventions to destroy them as fast as they were built; 
 and it kept vigil in fair weather and foul, in storm or 
 calm, winter's cold or summer's heat, incurring dangers 
 from torpedo or hidden mine but seeing to it that the 
 enemy did not close the sea lanes of communication. Ter- 
 rific were the losses at sea when the unrestricted subma- 
 rine warfare was begun in February, 19 17. In a two 
 weeks' period 106 vessels were sunk, three-fourths of 
 which were ships of over 1600 tons. Over 7,500,000 
 tons of merchant shipping was lost by England during 
 the war; but the greatest part of the loss was covered by 
 building new ships and capturing enemy vessels. 
 
 The Germans would have won the war, so the story 
 goes, if the Belgians had not blocked their progress for 
 ten days which allowed the French to better prepare and 
 to rearrange their line of defence; or if the French had 
 lost the First Battle of the Marne; or if the defenders 
 of the Channel Ports or of Verdun had yielded; or if 
 the Americans had not come to save the day; but whether 
 these are true assertions or not one thing cannot be de- 
 nied, without the British Navy there could have been no 
 victory. 
 
 Great Britain won much from the war. Added to her 
 widespread possessions were Palestine, Mesopotamia, 
 the Pacific Islands south of the equator formerly held by 
 Germany, parts of Kamerun and Togoland, German East 
 Africa and German Southwest Africa. Her prestige was 
 enhanced. Germany no more than Spain, or Holland, or 
 France could challenge successfully her colonial or mari- 
 time supremacy. With her Cape to Cairo railway, her 
 Suez Canal and her protectorate over Persia she could 
 dominate commercial and political policy over the better 
 
England's Entrance into the Great War 253 
 
 part of Africa and rich portions of Asia. A chief arti- 
 ficer of the Versailles Treaty and of the League of Na- 
 tions Covenant and the foremost member of the League, 
 the nation waxes constantly greater in influence and 
 power, directing Europe in the ways of law, justice and 
 peace. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Mrs. Humphrey Ward : England's Effort, p. 14. 
 
 2. Cross: A Shorter History of England and Great Britain, p. 
 
 832. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 LEGISLATIVE BY-PRODUCTS OF THE WAR 
 AND RECENT TENDENCIES 
 
 The Franchise Act of 19 18 added 8,000,000 voters to 
 the electorate, including 6,000,000 women. Whereas in 
 1832 only 1 in 24 of the population could vote, and in 
 1884 1 in 7, now the ratio is 1 in 3. The franchise was 
 given to all men over twenty-one with fixed residence or 
 place of business for six months and to all women over 
 thirty who had already the right to vote in local elections 
 by reason of a six months' ownership or tenancy of prop- 
 erty or who were the wives of men so qualified. It did 
 away with plural voting practically. The law enlarged 
 the House of Commons from 670 to 707. England was 
 given 492 members, Wales 36, Scotland 74, and Ireland 
 105. 
 
 The Act for disestablishing and disendowing the 
 Church in Wales, passed in 19 14, went into effect on 
 March 31, 1920. Wales was made a separate Arch- 
 bishopric. 
 
 The Education Act of 19 18 compelled regular full- 
 time attendance at school of all children between the 
 ages of five and fourteen. Between the ages of fourteen 
 and eighteen part time attendance is required at properly 
 organized continuation schools. Employers who engage 
 pupils attending continuation schools must release them 
 in time to allow for cleaning up, making themselves tidy 
 and getting meals. Children under twelve cannot be law- 
 
 254 
 
Legislative By-Products of the War 255 
 
 fully employed in industry at all, nor may children be- 
 tween twelve and the school-leaving age be employed 
 after school hours. "They may never work before six 
 o'clock in the morning or after eight o'clock at night, or 
 for more than two hours on Sunday.' x The expense of 
 the educational system was divided about equally be- 
 tween the central and local governments. 
 
 In 191 5 a Liquor Control Board was set up which 
 limited the sale of drink to a few specified hours each 
 day, and which greatly reduced the alcoholic strength 
 of beer and other spirituous liquors. 
 
 The voluntary Joint Standing Industrial Councils set 
 up in 19 1 7 are not unlike the Trade Boards. They are 
 not governmental bodies nor are their decisions enforce- 
 able at law. They are permanent bodies of representa- 
 tives of both capital and labor within an industry. They 
 are composed of representatives of both Employers' As- 
 sociations and Trades Unions who meet regularly to dis- 
 cuss their differences, remove grievances, beget ameliora- 
 tion, arrive at better mutual understanding and forestall 
 quarrels and strikes. The Corn Production Act (1917) 
 dealt with farmers' profits and farm laborers' wages. It 
 guaranteed a minimum price per quarter for wheat and 
 for oats payable by the state up until 1922 and it set up 
 an Agricultural Wages Board for fixing remuneration 
 for farm labor. It fixed "the minimum hours of work 
 at fifty-four per week in the summer and forty-eight in 
 winter, and provided for a Saturday half-holiday, and for 
 overtime rates of pay increased by 25 per cent on the 
 legal rate for week days and by 50 per cent for Sun- 
 day work." 2 
 
 The war struggle modified radically public sentiment 
 and policy as regards the tariff. In 19 17 a government 
 
256 England's Progress 
 
 committee on commercial and industrial policy, headed by 
 a former free trader, recommended " ( 1 ) taking of spe- 
 cial steps to stimulate . . . the production of food stuffs 
 and raw materials and manufactured articles; (2) the 
 adoption of Colonial Preference; and (3) the establish- 
 ment of a wider range of customs duties." 3 Protection 
 in England today is not so much an economic as a politi- 
 cal question. Its purpose is not commercial profit chiefly 
 but national self-sufficiency and imperial defense. War 
 experiences have put an end possibly for good and all to 
 England's free trade policy. In the present era of in- 
 creasing international relationships protective duties are 
 considered not so much with reference to their effects on 
 labor and industry as on State and Empire. 
 
 A new settlement has been attempted for Ireland. Dur- 
 ing the war (April, 19 16) Sir Roger Casement and Irish 
 radicals supported by Germans and receiving financial 
 aid from Irish Americans rose in revolt, unfurled their 
 flag over the Dublin Post Office, and proclaimed Patrick 
 Pearse "Provisional President of the Irish Republic." 
 For several days there was fierce fighting and many were 
 killed and wounded in Dublin. Property to the amount 
 of 10,000,000 pounds was destroyed. But as the Ger- 
 mans failed to send over the arms and munitions and to 
 make the attack on the East coast of England, as ex- 
 pected, the British poured 40,000 troops into Ireland 
 and quickly suppressed the rebellion. Casement was ex- 
 ecuted as a traitor, Pearse and six of the leaders were 
 shot, and fifty or more imprisoned for life. But the strug- 
 gle for independence lived on none the less. Eamon 
 de Valera was later elected by the Sinn Feiners (We 
 Ourselves) President of the Irish Republic. In the gen- 
 eral parliamentary election held in December, 19 18, the 
 
Legislative By-Products of the War 257 
 
 Sinn Feiners captured 73 of the constituencies while the 
 Unionists got 25 and the Nationalists only 7. None of 
 the Sinn Feiners took their seats at Westminster but 
 assembled in Dublin as the Irish Republican Parliament 
 which the majority of the people of Southern Ireland re- 
 garded as their lawful government, England's orders to 
 the contrary notwithstanding. Supporting the republi- 
 cans were labor groups of syndicalistic and socialistic 
 thou'ght and members of the Gaelic League who were 
 proud of Ireland's ancient literature and long-lived na- 
 tionalistic spirit. For a year and more intermittent guer- 
 illa warfare went on between the British and Sinn Fein 
 forces with much destruction of life and property and 
 with cruel reprisals. 
 
 To bring peace Lloyd George first tried to get a basis 
 of settlement through a convention held in 19 17 to which 
 representatives from all the various Irish parties were 
 invited. Sir Horace Plunkett, a man thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with Irish affairs and devoted to Ireland's in- 
 terest, presided over the Convention, the busy sessions of 
 which continued for nine long months (July, 19 17— April, 
 19 1 8). But as the Sinn Feiners would not attend at all 
 since the question of independence was forbidden to be 
 discussed; and the Protestant Ulsterites, who sent dele- 
 gates, refused to join in any sort of an all-Ireland Parlia- 
 ment little headway was made. The Prime Minister 
 then (December, 1920) presented a new Government of 
 Ireland Act. Its novel feature was the establishment of 
 two bi-cameral parliaments — one in Belfast for the six 
 northern counties, and one in Dublin for the rest of Ire- 
 land — and of a Council of Ireland composed of a Presi- 
 dent, an appointee of the King, and two delegations num- 
 bering twenty each from the two Parliaments. Power 
 
258 England* s Progress 
 
 was given the two Parliaments to substitute, if they should 
 later desire so to do, for the Council of Ireland a Parlia- 
 ment for the whole of Ireland consisting of one or two 
 houses. Executive power in each area remained with the 
 King who might exercise it through an appointed Lord 
 Lieutenant. Ireland was still to have forty-two repre- 
 sentatives in the English Parliament. As to the judici- 
 ary, there was to be a separate system of courts for each 
 area with one Supreme Court of Appeals for all Ireland. 
 Toward Imperial Expenditure Northern Ireland was to 
 contribute 44 per cent, Southern Ireland 66 per cent. Re- 
 served powers were about the same as those named in 
 the Act of 19 14. 
 
 Neither Northern nor Southern Ireland was pleased 
 with the proposal and for awhile held aloof. But event- 
 ually Ulster with patriotic loyalty accepted the plan and 
 set up her government with Sir James Craig as Prime 
 Minister. On June 22, 192 1, the King and Queen for- 
 mally opened the Ulster Parliament. "I appeal," said 
 King George, " to all Irishmen to stretch out the hand of 
 forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget." 
 With contrary Southern Ireland Lloyd George labored 
 with infinite patience and persistence, holding parleys 
 with de Valera and other representatives and negotiat- 
 ing meanwhile with Sir James Craig in an effort to ac- 
 commodate differences. For months no progress seemed 
 making but finally it was announced at 2 130 A.M. De- 
 cember 6 that an agreement by treaty had been reached 
 to declare Ireland a Free State within the British Em- 
 pire, like the Dominion of Canada, Ulster being given 
 the option to join in the new state or to keep her separate 
 status. Michael Collins was made Provisional Presi- 
 dent of the Free State, though he did not have the sup- 
 
Legislative By-Products of the War 259 
 
 port of de Valera and his many disciples who still seemed 
 ready to fight for an independent republic. Should civil 
 war occur between the Free State and the Republicans of 
 Southern Ireland it will be brutal and bloody. 
 
 The Government of India Act of 19 18 is liberal in 
 tendency. The declared policy of Parliament is to pro- 
 vide "the increasing association of Indians in every 
 branch of the administration, and the gradual develop- 
 ment of self-governing institutions with a view to the pro- 
 gressive realization of responsible government in India 
 as an integral part of the British Empire.' In March, 
 192 1, the Egyptian Government was invited to discuss 
 with the British Government the possible substitution of 
 the present English protectorate by a new political rela- 
 tionship which while securing Great Britain's interests 
 would better satisfy Egypt's desire for a greater auton- 
 omy. It may result that Egypt's relation to England 
 will be like that of Cuba to the United States. 
 
 Constructive imperialism has been strengthened by the 
 war. Previous to 19 14 this subject was quite prominent 
 in political writings and discussions. The increasing cost 
 of defending the widely scattered dominions and depen- 
 dencies of the vast Empire led some to the belief that 
 the component parts of the Empire should be represented 
 in an Imperial Council of State, and that these parts 
 should have a voice in laying taxes for imperial purposes 
 and should support the Imperial Exchequer. The Colo- 
 nies were naturally averse to paying into the British Na- 
 tional treasury large contributions for Imperial defence, 
 over the spending of which they had no control. No 
 workable imperial government could be set up unless both 
 Great Britain and the Colonies should place imperial 
 above local interests. An "Imperial defence based upon 
 
260 England* s Progress 
 
 Imperial) means could be organized only if the nucleus of 
 an Imperial Cabinet, with an Imperial Navy Board, an 
 Imperial Exchequer, and an Imperial Senate, represent- 
 ing the whole Empire, be created." 4 Up to 19 17 only 
 Imperial Conferences had been held, but in March of that 
 year under pressure of war was formed the Imperial War 
 Cabinet, composed of the Prime Ministers of Canada, 
 South Africa, New Zealand and Newfoundland, and the 
 Secretary of State for India, the British Prime Minister 
 and members of his War Cabinet. The Prime Ministers 
 met as equals, and each nation thus had its share in di- 
 recting governmental policy. In 19 18 was held a sec- 
 ond session of the Imperial War Cabinet, and it was de- 
 cided that for the future "the Prime Ministers as members 
 of this Cabinet should have the right of direct communi- 
 cation with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 
 and each dominion Prime Minister was given the right 
 to nominate a Cabinet Minister, one residing in or visit- 
 ing London, to represent him at meetings of the Cabinet 
 held between the plenary sessions. In 192 1 was assem- 
 bled in London an important conference between the 
 Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, South African 
 Union, Australian Commonwealth, Canada and New Zea- 
 land along with delegates from India to formulate a 
 common foreign policy. It was not without effect on the 
 non-renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Some day 
 England may yet evolve an imperial mechanism of rule. 
 Who can say that the Colonial Conferences of the future 
 will not be invested with executive functions, and that at 
 some day there may not be assembled in London a true 
 Imperial Parliament in which representatives from the 
 home land and colonies shall legislate on equal footing 
 side by side? 
 
Legislative By-Products of the War 261 
 
 With the coming of peace, the organization of govern- 
 ment had of course to be put back again on its pre-war 
 basis. The Cabinet has been reduced to twenty members. 
 Two new ministries have been created, the Ministry of 
 Health and the Ministry of Transport. Some needed 
 social legislation, such as the Housing Bill, has been en- 
 acted, and the big strikes of the railway men, miners and 
 transport workers — "The Triple Alliance" — have been 
 successfully handled. 
 
 Partly as results of the Great War and partly as re- 
 sults of forces active for some decades past, several 
 new conditions and tendencies are found in the life of 
 Great Britain today. Democracy has come to full expres- 
 sion, adult suffrage including women being had. Socially 
 the classes have been led to understand and appreciate 
 better one another. They have been forced to get to- 
 gether and do a common task, to fight a foe threatening 
 their very life. The rich and well-placed are more ready 
 than formerly to consider the problems and demands of 
 the less fortunate. Capital and labor are recognizing 
 the sanity and necessity of substituting frank counsel and 
 loyal cooperation for suspicion and conflict. "Many 
 employers have come to know that in some form or other 
 Labor must be made a partner, not a nominal partner 
 in the patronizing way which means five or ten pounds 
 at Christmas should the proprietor have made a million 
 during the year, but a real partnership on which above 
 a certain minimum a man's earnings expand with the pros- 
 perity of the business. Busy minds are working on 
 schemes and some of them will come to fruition before 
 long." B 
 
 Political parties are experiencing change. The old 
 Conservatives are becoming more liberal, and the old Lib- 
 
262 England's Progress 
 
 erals more radical and socialistic. Labor has placed 
 its representatives in the Cabinet and elected a third 
 of the members of the House of Commons. This augurs 
 constitutional change. The House of Commons may ac- 
 quire still greater weight in England's system of govern- 
 ment than it has today. Democracy may some day make 
 the House of Lords an elective body. The extension of 
 the franchise has been accompanied by a system of uni- 
 versal compulsory education. Though the working men 
 are gaining influence in politics and government, Eng- 
 land will have no soviet system of rule, no dictatorship 
 of the proletariat. National welfare, not pampering la- 
 bor, will be the end in legislation. Equality before the 
 law, not preferential treatment of a class, is the British 
 laborer's demand. Trade unionism will experience modi- 
 fications. Arbitrary laws that have lessened national 
 production, such as exclusion of willing and capable 
 workmen, limiting the number of apprentices, prohibiting 
 women in certain occupations, unreasonable limitation of 
 hours and output will eventually be set aside. The desire 
 and purpose to aid by law as far as it is possible to do so 
 in giving to every one who will work a decent living, in- 
 cluding a little leisure for self-culture, carries with it the 
 demand that the greatest possible production must be 
 had in every line. All must do their best in the interest 
 of national welfare in peace times as all did their best 
 in order to win the war. The whole community suffers 
 as does individual character when men trifle at their 
 tasks. While laissez faire has been giving way to col- 
 lectivism and state interference in some fields, the system 
 of Government control in industry has not been espe- 
 cially strengthened by war experiences. The people have 
 become tired of "bureaucracy." 
 
Legislative By-Products of the War 263 
 
 Woman's influence in politics will probably strengthen 
 the temperance cause through more restrictive interfer- 
 ence with the sale of intoxicants. The fact that the war 
 has left England with a million more women than men 
 is significant. The first woman to win a seat in the House 
 of Commons was Lady Astor, formerly Miss Nannie 
 Langhorne, an American girl born and reared in the State 
 of Virginia. 
 
 England is full of vision to make this world a better 
 world. England stands at the head of a group of free 
 commonwealths. Justice, peace and economic prosperity 
 she desires and labors for in her dependencies and pro- 
 tectorates. National animosities and racial jealousies 
 she would lessen. Law, self-government, toleration be- 
 long to her genius. She is not afraid of responsibilities 
 and dares to assume mandates. She has entered the 
 League of Nations with high resolve and having put her 
 hand to the plough she does not look backward as she 
 leads onward to a better international order. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 1. Turbeville & Howe: Great Britain in the Latest Age, p. 284. 
 
 2. Turbeville & Howe: Great Britain in the Latest Age, p. 128. 
 
 3. Encyclopaedia Britannica: Vol. 30, p. 1016. 
 
 4. J. E. Barker : Great and Greater Britain, p. 39. 
 
 5. Dilnot: England after the War, p. 321. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Alden : Democratic England. 
 
 Barker: Great and Greater Britain. 
 
 Bassett: History of United States. 
 
 Bright: Constitutional Monarchy 1689-1837. 
 
 Growth of Democracy 1 837-1 880. 
 Burrows: History of Foreign Policy of Great Britain. 
 Cheney: Social and Industrial History of England. 
 Corbett: Naval Operations. 
 Cramb : England and Germany. 
 Cross: England and Great Britain. 
 Dicey: Law and Public Opinion in England. 
 Dilnot: England After the War. 
 
 Lloyd George. 
 Dixon : The British Navy at War. 
 Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Vols. 16, 22, and 30. 
 Edwards : Notes on British History, Part IV. 
 Fitchett: Wesley and his Century. 
 Gooch : History of Our Own Times. 
 Harrison : International Policy. 
 Hayes: British Social Politics. 
 
 A Short History of the Great War. 
 Hazen: Europe Since 181 5. 
 Holt & Chilton: European History 1862-1914. 
 Hunt & Pool: Political History of England, Vols. 10, II. 
 Hughes: Britain and Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century. 
 Kellogg & Gleason : British Labour and the War. 
 Lang: Story of General Gordon. 
 Lecky: England in the Eighteenth Century, 7 vols. 
 Low and Sanders: Political History of England, edited by Hunt 
 
 & Pool, Vol. 12, 1837-1901. 
 Mathieson: England in Transition 1 789-1 832. 
 McCarthy: Epoch of Reform. 
 
 Modern England before the Reform Bill. 
 Montague: Elements of English Constitution. 
 Molesworth: History of England, Vols. 1 and 2. 
 Moran: The English Government. 
 
 265 
 
266 England' s Progress 
 
 Morley : Life of Gladstone, Vols. I and 2. 
 Oman: England in the Nineteenth Century. 
 Paul : History of Modern England, 5 vols. 
 
 History of Reform. 
 
 Life of Gladstone. 
 Peel: The Future of England. 
 Pollard : British Empire. 
 Rees: Current Political Problems. 
 
 A Social and Industrial History of England, 181 5- 191 8. 
 Robinson & Beard: Outlines of European History. 
 Roundell, Earl of Shelborne: A Defense of the Church of Eng- 
 land Against Disestablishment. 
 Seignobos: Political History of Europe Since 18 14. 
 Slater: The Making of Modern England. 
 Sydney: England and the English in the Eighteenth Century, 2 
 
 vols. 
 Terry: History of England. 
 
 Turbeville & Howe : Great Britain in the Latest Age. 
 Turner: Europe 1 789-1920. 
 
 Walford : Life and Political Career of Earl of Beaconsfield. 
 Walpole: History of England Since 181 5, 6 vols. 
 Ward: England's Effort. 
 Wheatley: Hogarth's London. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aberdeen, Lord, 90 
 Afghanistan, 168, 190 
 Agricultural Rating Act (1896), 
 
 183 
 Agricultural Wages Board (1917), 
 
 255 
 Alabama affair, 95 
 Alaska Boundary Controversy 
 
 (1867), 188 
 Albert, King of Belgium, 238 
 Amiens, battle of, 250 
 Anti-Corn Law League, 79 
 Arabi Pasha, 150 
 Argonne Forest, battle of, 250 
 Armenian massacres (1896), 185 
 Army reorganization (1871), 128 
 Arras, battle of, 250 
 Asquith, 200, 242 
 Astor, Lady, 263 
 Australian Commonwealth Act 
 
 (1900), 185 
 Austro-Prussian War (1866), no 
 
 Balfour, 195 
 
 Belgium: separation from Holland, 
 
 86; neutrality, 238; war, 238 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 55, 66 
 Boers, 146 
 Boxers (1900), 190 
 Bright, John, 70 
 
 Budget, Lloyd George's (1909), 208 
 Bulgaria, 239 
 Burke, 23 
 Buxton, Thomas F., 66 
 
 Cambridge University: religious 
 
 tests removed, 127 
 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 
 
 200, 202 
 Canadian Confederation, 112 
 Canadian Fishery Rights, 188 
 Candia, 186 
 Canning, 50, 51 
 
 267 
 
 Cardwell: army reform, 129, 130 
 Carnarvon, Lord, 161, 162 
 Carson, Sir Edward, 216 
 Casement, Sir Roger, 256 
 Castle re agh, 35, 49, 51 
 "Cat and Mouse" Act, 221 
 Catholic Association, 52 
 Catholic Emancipation, 52 
 Cato Street affair, 46 
 Cavendish, Lord Frederick, 159 
 Cawdor Memorandum (1905), 196 
 Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, 
 
 184, 196 
 Chartism, 82 
 Christina, Regent, 87 
 Clarkson, Thomas, 66 
 Cobbett, William, 43 
 Cobden, 70, 79 
 Collins, Michael, 258 
 Combination Acts (1800), 36 
 Commons Law Amendment Act 
 
 (1893), 207 
 Commutation of tithes (1836), 83 
 Congress of Berlin (1878), 142 
 Congress of Vienna, 32, 33 
 Corn Production Act (1917), 255 
 Coronel disaster, 248 
 County and District Councils Act 
 
 (1888), 171 
 Craig, Sir James, 258 
 Crimean War (1855), 89-92 
 Crimes Act (1887), 172 
 
 Derby insurrection, 46 
 
 Derby, Lord, 104 
 
 Development Act (1909), 205 
 
 "Dick Pigott," 175 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, 104-107, III, 
 
 "3> "4. *32> 134. 136-139. 14*- 
 
 i43» 150 
 Disraeli's Franchise Resolutions 
 
 (1867), 107 
 Dogger Bank, battle of, 251 
 Don Carlos, 87 
 
268 
 
 Index 
 
 Don Miguel, 87 
 Don Pedro, 87 
 
 Ecclesiastical Titles Act, repealed, 
 130 
 
 Educational Act (1870), 123, 126; 
 (1906), 207; (1918), 254 
 
 Edward VII, 211 
 
 Eighteenth Century England: char- 
 acteristics: intellectual, 9; mili- 
 tary, n, 12; social, 13; moral 
 and religious, 14-19 
 
 Eldon, Lord, 35, 49 
 
 Emancipation Act, 67 
 
 England's advances in Eighteenth 
 Century, 20, 21 
 
 Eyre, Governor, 98 
 
 Factory and Workshop Bill (1891), 
 
 172 
 Factory conditions and legislations, 
 
 68-71, 84 
 Falkland Islands, battle of, 249 
 Fashoda incident (1898), 192 
 Fenianism, 98-100 
 Ferdinand, Arch-Duke, assassi- 
 nated, 224 
 Forster, 123, 124 
 Franchise Act (1918), 254 
 Free Education Act (1891), 1 
 French Mexican affair, in 
 French Revolution: opinion in Eng- 
 land, 22, 23, 25; warfare, 25; 
 Peace of Amiens, 26; Napoleon's 
 hostility, 28; Waterloo, 31; 
 Treaty of Vienna, 32; cost of 
 war, 39; results of war, 40-42 
 
 Gallipoli, campaign of, 247 
 
 George IV, 34 
 
 George V, 211 
 
 Gilbert Act (1782), 73 
 
 Gladstone, William Ewart, 70, 101- 
 
 103, 114, 115, 117, 120-122, 127, 
 
 128, 131-134, I44> 145. 148, 149. 
 
 151, 152, 156-160, 162-164, 178) 
 
 182, 186 
 Gordon, General Charles, 152-155, 
 
 192 
 Goschen, 170, 183 
 Government of India Act (1918), 
 
 259 
 
 Government of Ireland Act (1920), 
 
 257 
 Government of London Act (1899), 
 
 183 
 Grey, Charles Earl, 54, 59, 62, 85 
 Grey, Sir Edward, 237 
 
 Harrington, Lord, 167, 183 
 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901), 
 
 188 
 Heligoland Bight, battle of, 250 
 Herat, evacuation of, 90 
 Hicks, General, 153 
 Holy Alliance, 50 
 Holy City, capture of, 250 
 Home Rule Bills: (1886), 164, 165; 
 
 (1893), 178; Asquith!s__ti£i2)» 
 
 214 „~ 
 Housing Act (1909), 205 
 Huskisson, 50 
 
 Illiteracy (1869), 124, 126 
 
 Imperial War Cabinet (1917), 260 
 
 Ireland, Free State, 258 
 
 Irish Church, disestablished, 115 
 
 Irish Land Bills, Gladstone's 
 (1875), 120, 121; (1881) and 
 (1886), 122; Salisbury Act 
 (1891), 122 
 
 Irish University Bill (1873), 131 
 
 Isabella, Queen, 87 
 
 Jaffa, capture of, 250 
 Jamaica, 97 
 Judicature Act, 131 
 Jutland, battle of, 251 
 
 Kultur, 229 
 
 Kut-el-Amara, capture of, 250 
 
 Laborers' Dwelling Bill, 136 
 Labor Exchanges Act (1909), 204 
 Land Purchase Bill, Balfour's 
 
 (1890), 174 
 Law, Bonar, 242, 244 
 League of Nations' Covenant, 253 
 License Bill (1908), 207, 131 
 Liege, 239 
 
 Liquor Control Board (1915), 255 
 Lloyd George, 200, 208, 209, 242- 
 
 244, 257 
 Local Health Board, 84 
 
Index 
 
 269 
 
 London Convention (1884), 150 
 Louis Philippe, 55, 86 
 
 Macaulay, Zachary, 67 
 Majuba Hill, 149 
 Mason and Slidell, 95 
 Maximilian, Emperor, 111 
 McCarthy, Justin, 177 
 Menshikov, Prince, 89 
 Mohammed Ahmed, 152 
 Mons, battle of, 247 
 Montdidier, battle of, 250 
 Morocco, 228 
 
 Municipal Corporation Act (1835), 
 75-78 
 
 Napoleon, 26, 30, 31 
 
 Napoleon, Louis, 89 
 
 National Insurance Act (1911), 204 
 
 Nelson, 29 
 
 Nightingale, Florence, 91 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 52, 54 
 O'Connor, 82 
 
 Old Age Pensions Act (1908), 203 
 O'Shea, Captain, 176 
 Outram, Sir James, 92 
 Oxford University, religious tests 
 removed, 127 
 
 Paine, 22 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, 85-89, 92, 93, 
 
 95, 100 
 Pan-Germanists, 226, 230-233 
 Paris revolution (1830), 55 
 Parliamentary Bill, Asquith's 
 
 (1911), 212 
 Parliament unreformed, 56-59 
 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 143, 157, 
 
 158, 173, 175, 176 , 
 "Parnellism and Crime," 174 
 Peace of Amiens, 26 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 50, 80, 81 
 Pendjeh incident, 156 
 Penny Postal System, 83 
 Peterloo incident, 47 
 Picardy, battle of, 250 
 Pitt, 25 
 
 Plunkett, Sir Horace, 257 
 Poor Law Reform, 72-75 
 Port Arthur, 189 
 Pretoria Convention (1881), 149 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Children 
 
 Act (1889), 172 
 
 Queen's Jubilee, 170 
 
 Redistribution of Seats Act (1885), 
 
 H5 
 Reform Act (1884), 145 
 Reform Bill (1831), 59-64 
 Repeal of Corn Laws, 79-82 
 Roberts, Lord, 241 
 Royal Titles Bill (1876), 137 
 Rosebery, Lord, 180, 182 
 Russell's Franchise Bill, 103 
 Russell, Lord John, 61, 77, 80, 81, 
 
 85,. 89, 97 
 Russia, war declared on Turkey 
 (1877), 140 
 
 Salisbury, Lord, 161, 167-169, 178, 
 183, 186, 187, 194 
 
 San Juan Island, 133 
 
 Sarajevo, 236 
 
 Servia, 236, 237 
 
 Shaftesbury, Lord, 70, 72 
 
 Sierra Leone Colony, 67 
 
 Sinn-Feiners, 256, 257 
 
 Six Acts (1891), 36 
 
 Slavery, 65-67 
 
 Small Holdings Act (1891), 172; 
 (1892), 206 
 
 Soissons, battle of, 250 
 
 Soudan, rebellion of (1881), 152; 
 conquest of (1899), 191 
 
 South African War (1899), 193 
 
 Spencer, Lord, 159 
 
 St. Mihiel Salient, 256 
 
 Stratford, Ambassador at Constan- 
 tinople, 89 
 
 Suez Canal, shares bought, 137 
 
 Tariff Reform, 218 
 
 Tel-el-Kebir, 151 
 
 Test and Corporation Acts, 51 
 
 Tewfik, Khedive, 150 
 
 Theodore, King of Abyssinia, 109 
 
 "Three F's," 120 
 
 Toryism (1800- 1830), 35, 48 
 
 Trades Boards Act (1909), 204 
 
 Treaty of Paris (1856), 91 
 
 Treaty of Tien-Tsing, 93 
 
 Triple Alliance, 227 
 
 Triple Entente, 227 
 
 Ulster Parliament (1921), 258 
 Unkiar Skelesi Treaty (1833), 88 
 
270 
 
 Index 
 
 Valera, 256 
 
 Venezuelan controversy, 186, 187 
 
 Verdun, battle of, 249 
 
 Versailles Treaty, 253 
 
 Victoria, Queen, 64, 81, 182 
 
 Villeneuve, 29 
 
 Vimy Ridge, battle of, 250 
 
 Wei-hai-Wei, 189 
 Wellington, Duke of, 51, 54 
 Welsh Disestablishment and Dis- 
 
 endowment Bill (1913), 216, 
 
 218 
 
 Whigs' demand (1816), 45; su- 
 premacy, 64 
 
 Wilberforce, William, 66 
 
 William IV, 54, 61, 64 
 
 Wilson, President Woodrow, 239 
 
 Workmen's Compensation Acts 
 (1897), 183; (1906), 203 
 
 Wolseley, Lord, 151, 155 
 
 Woman's Suffrage, 219, 220 
 
 World War (1914), 224 
 
 Ypres, battle of, 247, 250 
 Zobeir Pasha, 154 
 
 96 8 
 
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