L I B RAR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLRSITY 
 
 or ILLI NOIS
 
 I 
 
 Sij Iffears f \ 
 
 of XDlnionist 
 
 Government 
 
 isse-isQS 
 
 C. A. WHITMORE, M.P. 
 
 rONSERVATIVE MEMllER FOR CHELSEA 
 
 LONDON 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 ;; HEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. 
 i8q2 
 
 /In Edition is also published in Cloth, p?-ice is. 6d.
 
 *s^ 
 
 T-V/ 
 
 rV:;>-^,
 
 SIX YEARS 
 
 o? 
 
 UNIONIST GOVERNMENT 
 
 1886— 1892 
 
 HV 
 
 C. A. WHITMORE, M.P. 
 
 CONSERVATIVE MEMBER FOR CHELSEA 
 
 LONDON 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. 
 1892 
 
 [A II rights reserved]
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. IRELAND I 
 
 THE ' PLAN OF CAMPAIGN ' - - - 3 
 
 CRIMINAL LAW (IRELAND) AMENDMENT ACT - 3 
 THE IRISH LAND BILL - - - '5 
 
 EVENTS OF 1888 - - - - - 5 
 
 EXTENSION OF THE ASHBOURNE ACT - - 6 
 
 EVENTS OF 1889 - - - - - 6 
 
 THE SPECIAL COMMISSION - - - 7 
 
 GREAT IMPROVEMENT IN IRELAND, 1890 - 8 
 
 REPORT OF THE PARNELL COMMISSION - - 9 
 
 LIGHT RAILWAYS - - - - - lO 
 
 IRISH LAND PURCHASE BILL - - - 12 
 SPLIT IN THE IRISH PARTY AFTER THE O'SHEA 
 
 DIVORCE CASE - - - - - 13 
 PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR RELIEF OF IRISH 
 
 DISTRESS - - - - - - 14 
 
 THE LAND PURCHASE BILL AND ITS OPERATION 23 
 
 COLLAPSE OF THE 'PLAN OF CAMPAIGN' IN 1 89 1 28 
 
 THE IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL, 1 892 - 30 
 
 THE IRISH EDUCATION BILL, 1 892 - - 34 
 IRISH STATISTICS SHOWING IMPROVEMENT, 
 
 1886-1892 - - - - - 34 
 
 RESULTS OF UNIONIST GOVERNMENT IN IRELAND 36 
 
 II. THE FOREIGN OFFICE- - - - 37 
 
 EGYPT - - - - - - 38 
 
 AFRICA - - - - - - 39
 
 iv Contents 
 
 fAC.E 
 
 III. INDIA 43 
 
 IV. THE COLONIES 44 
 
 AUSTRALASIA - - - - - ^5 
 SOUTH AFRICA - - - - "45 
 
 NORTH AMERICA - - - - - 4''^ 
 
 IMPERIAL DEFENCE ACT - - - - 47 
 
 V. THE TREASURY 4« 
 
 BUDGET OF 1 888 - - - - - 48 
 
 BUDGET OF 1889 - - - - "49 
 
 BUDGET OF 1 891 - - - - ' S^ 
 
 BUDGET OF 1892 - - - - - 5' 
 
 SUMMARY - - - - - - 5' 
 
 THE NATIONAL DEBT - - - ' S- 
 
 VI. THE WAR OFFICE - - - - 53 
 
 VII. THE ADMIRALTY - - - - 55 
 
 VIII. HOME OFFICE - - - - - 61 
 
 IX. LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD - - 64 
 
 X. BOARD OF TRADE - - - - 69 
 
 XI. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE - - - 71 
 
 XII. THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT - - 74 
 
 FREE EDUCATION - - - - - 80 
 
 Xin. SCOTLAND (THE SCOTCH OFFICE)- - 84 
 
 XIV. POST OFFICE 85 
 
 SUPPLEMENT 86 
 
 CONCLUSION - - - - - 87 

 
 PREFACE 
 
 Mr. Balfour, in his speech at the Conservative Club on 
 April I, 1892, contrasted the 'earned dividends' of the 
 Unionist Government with the ' prospectuses ' of the 
 Gladstonian Party, and said, ' I think in this matter we are 
 at some disadvantage from the very wealth of topics on 
 which we have a right to dilate'; and, again, 'If we are to 
 deal with the policy of the Unionist Party in the last six 
 years, it is perfectly impossible within the compass of a 
 single speech to do justice even to one of the elements 
 which make up that policy as a whole, and still more im- 
 possible to do anything like justice to the whole scope of 
 the transactions in which the various members of the Govern- 
 ment have been concerned.' Yet it is most important that 
 the electors should have some opportunity of perceiving a^ 
 a glance the whole scope of these notable transactions. 
 And so in this little book I have tried to give an accurate 
 and succinct narrative of the actual performances of the 
 Unionist Government in every department of public affairs. 
 The narrative makes no pretension to literary style, but I 
 hope that it will supply both to readers and to speakers a 
 chronicle of these facts in a form rather more coherent, and 
 rather less repellent, than is possible in the ordinary political 
 leaflet. I wish to express my obligations to the compilers 
 of the ' National Union Gleanings ' and of the ' Campaign 
 Guide,' from the latter of which I have ventured to make 
 quotations somewhat freely.
 
 vi Preface 
 
 The first Session of the Parhament elected at the General 
 Election of 1886 commenced on August 6. The House of 
 Commons was composed of 316 Conservatives, 78 Liberal 
 Unionists, 191 Gladstonians, and 85 Parnellites, giving a 
 majority of 113 to the Unionists. The Session was devoted 
 by the Government to the voting of the Estimates for the 
 year. But one Government Bill of some little interest was 
 passed. Up to this date an annual sum of ^10,000 had 
 been paid out of the Consolidated Fund to the Patronage 
 Secretary to the Treasury for Secret Service in this country. 
 It had been disbursed by him without the control of 
 Parliament, and it was commonly supposed that it had been 
 habitually applied to the electioneering requirements of the 
 party in power. By the Secret Service Money (Repeal) 
 Act the pre-existing Acts, under which this payment had 
 been made, were repealed. 
 
 An exception to the general rule that no facilities should 
 be given in this Session for Private Members' Bills was 
 made in favour of Mr. Parnell's Tenants' Relief Bill, the 
 Second Reading of which was taken on September 20. 
 Based on the assumption that there had been a great and 
 general fall in the prices of agricultural produce in Ireland, 
 this Bill in its principal proposal provided that payment by 
 a tenant of 50 per cent, of his rent and of his arrears should 
 relieve him from the enforcement of eviction. The Govern- 
 ment opposed the Bill. They denied the greatness of the 
 depression; they questioned the alleged probability of 
 agrarian disturbances in the winter, unless they were artifi- 
 cially excited by political agitators. They announced that 
 they were sending Sir Redvers Buller on a special mission 
 of inquiry into the state of the west and south-west of 
 Ireland, and that two Royal Commissions would be forth- 
 with appointed — the first to inquire into the working of the 
 Land Acts of 1881 and 1885, and the second to inquire
 
 Preface vii 
 
 into the best methods of developing the material resources 
 of Ireland. The chief interest of the debate lay in the new 
 cleavage between parties which it disclosed. On a question, 
 Irish indeed, but not of Home Rule, and not essentially 
 connected with Home Rule, Mr. Gladstone and his followers 
 supported Mr. Parnell, while Lord Hartington and his 
 party joined the Government in resisting the Bill, which was 
 rejected by 297 to 202. In the majority there voted 266 
 Conservatives and 31 Liberal Unionists; and in the 
 minority 122 Gladstonians, i Unionist, and 81 Parnellites. 
 But the Bill had served the purpose. It was a characteristic 
 illustration of a favourite method in Parnellite strategy. A 
 Bill was introduced so indefensible as to be foredoomed to 
 defeat ; and then its defeat was used as the justification, 
 and even alleged to be the cause, of subsequent disturb- 
 ances in Ireland, which, in fact, were independent of it, and 
 were deliberately organized by the Nationalist leaders. 
 
 Parhament met for its second Session on January 27, 
 1887. Every Conservative member will recall the feeling of 
 uncertainty and depression with which he entered the House 
 of Commons that foggy afternoon. The sudden secession 
 of Lord Randolph Churchill, the substitution of Mr. Smitlv 
 as leader of the House, the death of Lord Iddesleigh, the 
 failure of Mr. Goschen to obtain a seat at Liverpool, the 
 Round Table Conference, the growing conviction that the 
 calculated lawlessness of the Nationalist Party called for a 
 strengthening of the Criminal Law in Ireland — all these 
 circumstances combined to produce a general impression 
 that the Unionist alliance would break down, and that the 
 Government itself could hardly live through the Session. 
 A further blow was apparently dealt to the Government 
 when its Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Michael Hicks 
 Beach, retired through ill health from his office, though not 
 from the Cabinet. Mr. Balfour took his place ; and the
 
 viii Preface 
 
 changes in the Cabinet necessitated by these events were 
 made as follows : Mr. Goschen became Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, and was returned for St. George's, Hanover 
 Square ; Lord Salisbury became Foreign Minister ; Mr. 
 Smith, First Lord of the Treasury ; Lord Knutsford (Sir 
 Henry Holland), Secretary fur the Colonies ; Mr. Stanhope, 
 Secretary for War. As thus reconstituted, and with the 
 addition of Lord Cadogan and Mr. Ritchie in April, and of 
 Mr. Chaplin on his appointment as Minister of Agriculture, 
 and with the substitution in 1888 of Sir M. Hicks Beach for 
 Lord Stanley, as President of the Board of Trade, the 
 Cabinet remained unaltered until the death of Mr. Smith in 
 October, 1891. Henceforth it will be convenient to record 
 the work under the headings of the several departments 
 which initiated it.
 
 r 
 
 SIX YEARS OF 
 UNIONIST GOVERNMENT 
 
 I. 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 The General Election of 1886 had turned exclusively upon 
 the Irish policy of" Mr. Gladstone. It was on that issue 
 that the appeal to the country was made ; it was on that 
 issue that the country gave its answer. Recalling that 
 electoral fight, in the light of the present condition of 
 politics, and of the thoughts which are stirring the minds of 
 masses of men, it is most remarkable how the conflict 
 between the cause of the Union and the cause of Home 
 Rule then engrossed the attention of the electorate, and' 
 drove into the background agrarian longings, urban discon- 
 tent, and even the new dreams of labour. Although this 
 was an indisputable fact, and although the verdict of the 
 constituencies on this single and clear issue was distinct 
 and emphatic, neither the Irish nor the British section of 
 the Home Rule Party regarded it as decisive or final. And 
 both sections, in their different methods, began without 
 delay to work for a reversal of this verdict. On August 1 7 
 the National Liberal Federation issued a manifesto, affirm- 
 ing its continued allegiance to Mr. Gladstone and his 
 Home Rule policy, and asserting that the welfare of the 
 country and the future of Liberalism were inseparably con- 
 nected with the question of Irish self-government. Mr. 
 Gladstone published a pamphlet, ' The History of an Idea,'
 
 2 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 in the same month, in which he expressed himself confident 
 of the reaHzation of his pohcy in a not distant future. 
 * Look at the question,' he wrote, ' which way we will, the 
 cause of Irish self-government lives and moves, and can 
 hardly fail to receive more life and more propulsion from 
 the hands of those who have been its successful opponents 
 in one of its particular forms. It will arise as a wounded 
 warrior sometimes arises on the field of battle and stabs to 
 the heart some -soldier of the victorious army who has been 
 standing over him.' While Mr. Parnell in the House of 
 Commons on August 24 said, 'After the present Govern- 
 ment have exhibited themselves as a spectacle for gods and 
 men for a year or two in their attempt to govern Ireland,' 
 English opinion will come round to Home Rule. 
 
 In his speeches in the House of Commons in support of 
 his Home Rule Bill, Mr. Gladstone had insisted upon the 
 social disorder of Ireland as the main cause of, and the 
 justification for, this great change in his policy towards 
 Ireland. It was obviously, therefore, the policy of the 
 Nationalist Party to perpetuate, and even increase, the 
 social disorder of Ireland. By this policy they would be 
 preserving the very raiso7i d'etre of Gladstonian Home 
 Rule ; incidentally they would be impoverishing and 
 weakening their hereditary enemy, ' the English garrison,' 
 and, as an ulterior result, they would be compelling the 
 Unionist Government to adopt ' Coercion,' and in conse- 
 quence oblige it, as they fondly hoped, to shatter the 
 Unionist alliance, and disgust the British democracy. 
 This policy was nakedly avowed by Mr. John Redmond in 
 Wexford on August 5, 1887. 'When Mr. Gladstone was 
 defeated in England last year,' he said, 'and when the 
 Tories came into power, they boasted they could govern 
 Ireland by means of the ordinary law. Mr. Gladstone, on 
 the contrary, told the people of England that they had to 
 choose between Coercion on the one side, and Home 
 Rule on the other. Home Rule was defeated at the last 
 election in Great Britain, and I say advisedly that if, in the 
 face of that defeat, the Tories had been able to rule Ireland 
 with the ordinary law, the result would have been in 
 England and Scotland to throw back our cause perhaps for 
 a generation, and to give the lie direct to the prophecy of
 
 Ireland 3 
 
 Mr. Gladstone. . . . We have been able to force the 
 Government to give up the ordinary law, and to fall back 
 once more on Coercion.' 
 
 The * Plan of Campaign.* 
 
 The Plan of Campaign was suggested in an article in 
 United Ireland of October 23, and further explained in a 
 special supplement to that paper of November 20, which 
 was circulated throughout Ireland. It was described by 
 Mr. Harrington, M.R, as 'a plan by which the tenants could 
 fight the landlord with the landlord's money. In stricter 
 accuracy it was described as ' an impudent and fradulent 
 device to enable tenants to defy their landlords, and to pay 
 them just as much or as little as they thought fit, the tenant 
 lodging in the hands of a confederate the money which 
 ought to have gone to pay his stipulated rent, and thereby 
 making, or pretending to make, himself insolvent.' 
 
 Criminal Law (Ireland) Amendment Act. 
 
 The Queen's Speech in 1887 had this paragraph : 
 ' The condition of Ireland still requires your anxious atten- 
 tion. The relations between the owners and occupiers of land, 
 which, in the early part of the autumn exhibited signs of im- 
 provement, have since been seriously disturbed in some districts 
 by organized attempts to incite the latter class to combiae 
 against the fulfilment of their legal obligations. The efforts of 
 my Government to cope with this evil have been seriously 
 impeded by difficulties incident to the method at present pre- 
 scribed by statute for dealing with such offences. Your early 
 attention will be called to proposals for reforms in legal proce- 
 dure which seem necessary to secure the prompt and efficient 
 administration of the criminal law.' 
 
 On March 28 the Criminal Law (Ireland) Amendment 
 Bill was introduced, and then began the prolonged and 
 arduous Parliamentary struggle to pass it through the House 
 of Commons against the combined forces of the Irish Party 
 and of the regular Radical Opposition. It was confidently 
 asserted by many Radical leaders that this attempt must fail. 
 Without question, the Radical leaders did their best to 
 fulfil their predictions. When, after repeated all-night 
 sittings, the House of Commons adjourned on May 23 for
 
 4 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 the Whitsuntide recess, it had only got through the second 
 clause in Committee. So slow was the progress made after 
 that recess, that on June lo Mr. Smith moved that if the 
 Bill were not reported by lo p.m. on the 17th inst., the 
 Chairman should put the remaining clauses without debate. 
 The Bill had then occupied the House for thirty-five full 
 working days. On the 17th, Clause 6 was reached when 
 ten o'clock struck, and while Sir Charles Russell was speak- 
 ing, the Chairman, interrupting him, put the question that 
 Clause 6 stand part of the Bill. The Irish members then 
 left the House in a body ; the bulk of the Radicals followed 
 them. The remaining clauses were put seriatim without a 
 division, and the Bill was reported to the House. The 
 third reading was taken on July 7. Mr. Gladstone moved 
 the rejection of the Bill, and was defeated by 349 to 267. 
 And thus the first stage in the conflict between the Unionist 
 Party and Irish sedition, aided by British Radicalism, was 
 accomplished, and the Government was armed with the 
 powers which it deemed requisite for the suppression of 
 crime in Ireland. It remained to be proved how far British 
 public opinion would tolerate the rigorous exercise of these 
 powers, and, secondly, if so, whether the powers themselves 
 would be adequate to their object. 
 
 The Irish leaders, and especially Mr. Dillon and Mr. 
 O'Brien, showed incessant activity in starting and main- 
 taining the Plan of Campaign on selected estates, and in 
 holding meetings in defiance of the law. On the other 
 hand, with consistent firmness, the Irish Administration 
 proclaimed meetings that were likely to lead to disorder, or 
 were called with lawless objects ; and in their prosecution 
 of law-breakers, and in the subsequent prison-treatment of 
 those who had been sentenced to imprisonment, were no 
 respecters of persons, and proceeded with equal rigour 
 against every wrong-doer, regardless of the fact that he was 
 a member of Parliament, a Lord Mayor, a poet, or an 
 Englishman of good birth. During the remainder of this 
 year, 1887, the leading incidents in the struggle between 
 order and disorder were the meeting at Mitchelstown on 
 September 9, which unfortunately ended in loss of life, and 
 the proclaimed meeting held at Woodford on October 2, 
 which led to the imprisonment of Mr. Wilfred Blunt and
 
 Ireland 5 
 
 Mr. William O'Brien. Amongst the many Irish members 
 whom it became necessary to proceed against, and out of 
 whose case a special attempt to enlist sympathy was 
 made, was Mr. T. D. Sullivan, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, 
 and a writer of Nationalist songs. 
 
 The Irish Land Bill. 
 
 In the Session of 1887, was passed the first of the 
 Government's remedial measures — their Land Bill. It 
 owed its origin to the Report of the Cowper Commission. 
 Its principal provision enabled all leaseholders — 150,000 in 
 number — who had been excluded from the Act of 1881, 
 to go into Court and obtain a judicial revision of their 
 rents. 
 
 Events of 1888. 
 
 During 1888 the Nationalist leaders did not relax their 
 efforts to foment disorder, to maintain the Plan of Campaign, 
 and to oblige the Executive to prosecute them for taking 
 part in illegal meetings and conspiracies. The Executive 
 still kept steadily to its resolute policy. The events which 
 excited most interest in Ireland were the collision between 
 the populace and the soldiery and police, at a proclaimed 
 meeting, at Ennis, on April 15 ; the death of John Mande- 
 ville, at Mitchelstown, on July 8, after his release from 
 Tullamore Gaol ; and the Papal Rescript, condemning the 
 Plan of Campaign, which was issued after the visit io 
 Ireland, on a special mission of inquiry, of Monsignor 
 Persico. In Parliament, in this year, a beginning was 
 made with that portion of the remedial policy of the Govern- 
 ment which was directed towards the material development 
 of Ireland. On July 2 Mr. Balfour introduced Bills for the 
 drainage of the lands within the valleys of the Bann, Barrow, 
 and Shannon. The second reading of the Bann Bill was 
 carried on July 19, and it passed into law after much 
 obstruction from British Radicals and a very small knot of 
 Irish members. Owing to this opposition it became neces- 
 sary to drop the other two Bills. 
 
 In the latter part of this Session much time was spent 
 and great heat generated in the debates on the Bill intro- 
 duced by the Government for the creation of a Special 
 Commission to inquire into and report upon the charges
 
 6 Six Years ok Unionist Government 
 
 brought by The Times, in its articles ' Parnellism and 
 Oime,' against the Nationahst leaders. The Bill was intro- 
 duced on July 1 6, and read a third time on August 8. 
 
 Extension of the Ashbourne Act. 
 
 In the autumn Session of i888, on November 19, the 
 Government brought in a Bill to extend the Ashbourne 
 Act of 1885, by the grant of a further sum of ;£"5,ooo,oco 
 for land purchase in Ireland. The former Act had been 
 an unecjuivocal success. It was stated by the Irish Attorney- 
 Cieneral that since its passage there had been 14,338 signed 
 agreements to purchase, requiring for execution ;«f 5,986,000, 
 of which no less than 6,833 ^^'^^^ f<^^ holdings under ^-^o 
 a year. The instalments had been regularly paid, and of 
 the ;£9o,ooo liability, which had accrued since the passing 
 of the Act, only ;^i,ioo remained unpaid. Notwithstand- 
 ing these facts, and their own past committal to the policy 
 of land purchase, the Radical leaders offered a most deter- 
 mined resistance to the Bill, which, however, was ultimately 
 read a third time in the House of Commons on November 
 29, by 202 to 141. 
 
 Events of 1889. 
 
 In 1889, though the Irish leaders continued strenuously 
 to agitate and to support the Plan of Campaign, and though 
 in certain districts there were outbreaks of disorder and 
 resolute refusals to pay rent, yet, taking Ireland as a whole, 
 a beginning of a gradual improvement was seen. Agricul- 
 ture was more thriving, and rents generally were better paid ; 
 the sum total of agrarian crime was diminishing, and where 
 disorder was rampant it was obviously the outcome of 
 deliberate and frantic efforts on the part of individual agita- 
 tors."^ Amongst the most conspicuous incidents in the 
 continued conflict between order and disorder, were the 
 prosecution, in January, of seven Irish members for offences 
 under the Crimes Act, the imprisonment of Mr. William 
 O'Brien and of Mr. Edward Harrington, and the desperate 
 efforts made by Nationalist and Radical sympathizers to 
 excite popular indignation because of their prison treatment. 
 
 ■* In 1888 there were 1,475 prosecutions under the Crimes 
 Act, and 1,082 persons convicted. In 1889 there were 839 
 prosecutions, and 597 persons convicted.
 
 Ireland 7 
 
 Mr. O'Brien refused to wear the prison dress. Mr. Harring- 
 ton objected to the loss of his moustache. The whole 
 Radical press indulged in hysterical pity, and sought to 
 establish a code of privilege for distinguished or educated 
 prisoners. But, as Lord Salisbury said in the House of 
 Lords, ' It was difficult to preserve a sufficiently tragic air 
 over Mr. O'Brien struggling for his clothes, or Mr. Harring- 
 ton mourning over his moustache.' 
 
 The progress of the Plan of Campagn on the Falcarragh 
 estate of Mr. Olphert, and the organized boycotting of Mr. 
 Olphert himself, who was an undeniably good landlord, 
 attracted much attention. Mr. Conybeare, M.P., was 
 sentenced to three months' imprisonment for his actions at 
 evictions rendered necessary on this estate by the conspiracy 
 to refuse to pay rent. 
 
 The Special Commission. 
 
 In Parliament the earlier portion of the Session in the 
 House of Commons was mainly occupied by a constant 
 and running fire upon the Government from the Irish and 
 Radical benches on questions arising out of the Parnell 
 Commission. When, on February 17, after the collapse 
 of Piggott's evidence and his confession of forgery of the 
 Parnell letters, the Times case against Mr. Parnell in this 
 respect was withdrawn, the excitement of the Opposition 
 culminated. When Mr. Parnell spoke for the first time 
 after this, in the debate on Mr. Morley's amendment to the 
 Address, the whole Opposition, including the front bench, 
 rose and waved their hats in boisterous enthusiasm and 
 triumph. It is difficult to realize now how enormously the 
 political importance of this incident was exaggerated at the 
 moment. In the House Radical free-lances openly boasted 
 that we should hear of nothing but Piggott for the remainder 
 of the Session, while at public meetings called by Conserva- 
 tives the cry of Piggott was as persistently on the tongues 
 of interrupters in the audience, as the popular song of the 
 day is in the mouth of the street-boys of London. The 
 nearest parallel to this theatrical scene that this Parliament 
 has shown was on the night when a credulous Radical 
 brought the false news that Lord Compton had won the 
 bye-election in Holborn, and when, in similar fashion, the
 
 8 Six Years of Unmonist Government 
 
 staid Privy Councillors on the front Opposition bench and 
 all their followers rose and wildly waved their orders of the 
 day, and cheered themselves hoarse. There is irony in the 
 reflection that in the one scene the cause for triumph did 
 not exist at all, and that in the other the same men who 
 indulged in such extravagant joy at the exculpation in one 
 matter of Mr. Parnell, subsequently drove him from his 
 leadership and broke up the party which he had created, 
 and could alone keep together. 
 
 On May 31 Mr. 13alfour introduced four drainage Bills, 
 and a Bill to facilitate the construction of light railways. 
 
 Great Improvement in Ireland, 1890. 
 
 In 1890 the improvement in the social condition of the 
 country, which had began to manifest itself in the previous 
 year, continued. On January 24 the provisions of the 
 Crimes Act were relaxed in eleven counties. The opposing 
 force concentrated all their efforts in the typical and culmi- 
 nating struggle at Tipperary between Mr. Smith-Barry, repre- 
 senting order and the legitimate rights of property, and Mr. 
 W. O'Brien, representing the forces of anarchy, sedition, 
 and confiscation. Mr. Smith-Barry had agreed to help 
 another landlord, Mr. Ponsonby, in his resistance to the 
 Plan of Campaign on his estates near Ygughal. In retalia- 
 tion for this, although it w^as admitted that Mr. Smith-Barry 
 was a good landlord, and that his urban tenants at Tipperary 
 were thriving, and with no just cause of complaint against 
 him, a conspiracy was organized that they should not pay 
 their rents, and that they should leave their shops and 
 homes in what was then the exceptionally prosperous town 
 of Tipperary. To this end a special Tenants' Defence Fund 
 was started. ;£^5 0,000 was collected. New Tipperary was 
 built, and its completion celebrated by a banquet on April 12, 
 at which Mr. O'Brien was supported by several English 
 members of Parliament. In the autumn Mr. Dillon and 
 Mr. O'Brien were arrested on charges of inciting to non- 
 payment of rent. It was on the first day of their trial at 
 Tipperary, September 25, that a conflict occurred between 
 the police and the crowd at the Court-house, and the 
 stripling, Mr. Harrison, M.P. (a muscular Oxonian six feet 
 high) received injuries. Mr. John Morley was an onlooker
 
 Ireland 9 
 
 of the disturbance, which is interesting as being about the 
 last event in the long struggle between coercion and agita- 
 tion which supplied material for prolonged Parliamentary 
 controversy. While the prosecution was still proceeding, 
 Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien disappeared, and forfeited their 
 bail. They made their way to the United States, and on 
 November 19, in their absence, were sentenced to six 
 months' imprisonment, without hard labour. 
 
 Report of the Parnell Commission. 
 
 In Parliament the Report of the Parnell Commission* 
 was presented on February 13. The most important of the 
 findings politically are these : 
 
 1. 'We find that the respondent members of Parliament 
 collectively were not members of a conspiracy having for 
 its object to establish the absolute independence of Ireland j 
 but we find that some of them, together with Mr. Davitt, 
 established and joined in the Land League organization, ; 
 with the intention, by its means, to bring about the absolute* 
 independence of Ireland as a separate nation.' (This charge 
 is found proved against Messrs. Davitt, M. Harris, Dillon, 
 W. O'Brien, W. Redmond, J. O'Connor, J. Condon, and 
 J. J. O'Kelly.) 
 
 2. ' We find that the respondents did enter into a con- | 
 spiracy, by a system of coercion and intimidation, to promote \ 
 an agrarian agitation against the payment of agricultural I 
 rents, for the purpose of impoverishing and expelhng from I 
 the country the Irish landlords, who were styled the " English \ 
 garrison." ' 
 
 5. ' We find that the respondents did not directly incite ^ 
 persons to the commission of crime other than intimidation, i 
 bat that they did incite to intimidation, and that the conse- \ 
 quence of their intimidation was that crime and outrage { 
 were committed by the persons incited.' 
 
 6. ' We find, as to the allegation that the respondents did 
 nothing to prevent crime, and expressed no bona-fide dis- 
 approval, that some of the respondents, and in particular 
 
 * For a full digest and summary see ' Handbook to the 
 Report of the Special Commission,' by H. O. Arnold- Forster. 
 London : Edward Arnold, 1890.
 
 lo Six Ykars of Unionist Government 
 
 Mr. Davitt, did express Iwna-fide disapproval of crime and 
 outrage ; but that the respondents did not denounce the 
 system of intimidation which led to crime and outrage, but 
 persisted in it with knowledge of its effect.' 
 
 9. ' As to the allegation that the respondents invited the 
 assistance and co-operation of, and accepted subscriptions 
 of money from, known advocates of crime and the use of 
 dynamite, we find that the respondents did invite the assist- 
 ance and co-operation of, and accepted subscriptions of 
 money from, Patrick Ford, a known advocate of crime and 
 the use of dynamite. ... It has been proved that the 
 respondents invited and obtained the assistance and co- 
 operation of the Physical Force Party in America, including 
 the Clan-na-Gael, and, in order to obtain that assistance, 
 abstained from repudiating or condemning the action of 
 that party.' 
 
 Its presentation led to long debates in the House of 
 Commons. On the part of the Government, Mr. Smith 
 moved that the House do ' adopt the report, and thank the 
 Commissioners for their just and impartial conduct' To 
 which Mr. Gladstone moved as an amendment : ' This 
 House deems it to be a duty to record its reprobation of 
 the false charges of the gravest and most odious description, 
 based upon calumny and forgery, which have been brought 
 against members of this House, and particularly against 
 Mr. Parnell ; and while declaring its satisfaction at the 
 exposure of these calumnies, the House expresses its regret 
 for the wrong inflicted and the suffering and loss endured 
 through a protracted period by reason of these acts of 
 flagrant iniquity.' After a long debate the amendment was 
 negatived by 339 to 268 votes. 
 
 Light Railways. 
 
 On August 12, Mr. Balfour introduced a Bill to enable 
 the works, in connection with the light railways projected 
 in the west and north-west of Ireland, to be advanced with 
 increased expedition. It was beginning to be feared that 
 there would be a serious failure of the potato crop in those 
 districts ; it was hoped that the employment to be derived 
 from the construction of these lines would act as relief work
 
 Ireland 
 
 for the temporary distress. The Bill proposed that a special 
 grand jury should be enipowered to sanction the schemes forth- 
 with, so that the works might be started before the distress 
 began to be felt. Despite some bitter opposition from a 
 handful of Irish and Radical members, the Bill was rapidly 
 passed through both Houses. Under the provisions of this 
 Act, and of the similar Act of 1889, the Times of January 12, 
 1892, reports as follows : 
 
 ' Twelve works have been commenced. Ten of them have 
 obtained the confirming orders of the Lord - Lieutenant in 
 Council, the arrangements in the other two cases — viz., Achill 
 Extension and Collooney and Claremorris — being still incom- 
 plete, the funds being provided for as stated below — viz. : 
 
 
 
 
 Share capital 
 
 
 Length 
 
 Free 
 
 guaranteed 
 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Grant. 
 
 by Counties 
 and Treasury. 
 
 County Donegal : 
 
 
 I 
 
 £ 
 
 I. Donegal and Killybegs... 
 
 19 
 
 115,600 
 
 1,000 
 
 2. Stranorlar and Glanties 
 
 24 
 
 116,000 
 
 1,000 
 
 County Mayo : 
 
 
 
 
 3. Achill Extension 
 
 85 
 i8| 
 
 67,000 
 
 — 
 
 4. Westport and Mallaranny 
 
 131,400 
 
 _ 
 
 5. Ballina and Killala 
 
 8 
 
 44,000 
 
 — 
 
 County Galway : 
 
 
 
 6. Galway and Clifden 
 
 48i 
 
 264,600 
 
 • 
 
 County Kerry : 
 
 
 
 
 7. Headford and Ken mare 
 
 I9i 
 
 50,000 
 
 60,000 
 
 8. Killorglin and Valencia 
 
 261 
 
 85,000 70,000 
 
 County Cork : 
 
 
 
 
 9. Baltimore Extension 
 
 7 
 
 56,700 
 
 
 
 10. Bantry Bay Extension 
 
 2 
 
 15,000 
 
 — 
 
 County Down : 
 
 
 
 
 1 1. Downpatrick and Ard- 
 
 
 
 
 glass 
 
 1\ 
 
 30,000 
 
 — 
 
 Counties Sligo and Mayo : 
 
 
 
 
 12. Collooney and Clare- 
 
 
 
 
 morris 
 
 47 
 
 145,000 
 
 120,000 
 
 
 '^35i 
 
 1,119,600 
 
 252,000
 
 12 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 'The Act thus creates twelve hncs with an aggregate length of 
 235^ miles, all of them situated in the most distressed districts, 
 with the exception of the short line between Downpatrick and 
 Ardglass, which has been assisted solely in the interests of the 
 large fishery industry at Ardglass. The two lines in County 
 Donegal are to be constructed on a three-feet gauge, all the 
 others being on the ordinary gauge of 5 feet 3 inches. The 
 three Mayo lines and the Galway and Clifden will be worked 
 in connection with the Midland Great Western system, the two 
 in Kerry with that of the Great Southern and Western. The 
 Cork and Bandon Railway take over the two Cork lines, and 
 the Belfast and County Down Railway that to Ardglass. It is 
 understood that the Waterford and Limerick Company are pre- 
 pared to undertake to work the Collooney and Claremorris line, 
 the agreement being still under consideration. It will also be 
 seen from the tabular statement that these lines reach the im- 
 portant fishing grounds on the west coast, off Killybegs, Achill, 
 Killala Bay, Clifden and adjacent stations, Kenmare, Valencia, 
 and Bantry Bay, together with Baltimore in the south and Ard- 
 glass on the east coast, and will, therefore, afford to these places 
 such facilities for sending their fish to the best markets as they 
 have not hitherto enjoyed, and which may reasonably be ex- 
 pected to lead to a very large development of that important 
 industry.' 
 
 Irish Land Purchase Bill. 
 
 The Government's Land Purchase Bill was introduced 
 by Mr. Balfour on March 24, 1890. Its second reading 
 was moved on April 21. Its rejection was moved by Mr. 
 Parnell, who was defeated by 348 to 268. But the carriage 
 of the Bill, and of other Government measures in this 
 Session, was made impossible by the disturbance which 
 their unexpected licensing proposals effected in the progress 
 of business in the House of Commons. Partly, in order to 
 overtake the arrears of work thus caused, and partly to meet 
 the general desire for an earlier prorogation in the summer, 
 Parliament was called together for its next Session on 
 November 25. Mr. Balfour promptly introduced his Bills. 
 Their course through the House was immensely facilitated 
 by the verdict in the O'Shea divorce case, and its far-reaching 
 consequences. Mr. Balfour had divided his former Bill 
 into two separate ones — the Land Purchase Bill and the 
 Congested Districts Bill. English Radicals opposed the 
 first reading of the former, and were beaten by 268 votes
 
 Ireland 13 
 
 to I [7, Mr. Parnell and twenty-five of his followers support- 
 ing the Government, while Mr. Gladstone, Sir W. Harcourt, 
 and Mr. Morley walked out of the House without voting. 
 The second reading was carried on December 3 by 268 
 to 130 votes. 
 
 Split in the Irish Party after the O'Shea Divorce 
 
 Case. 
 
 It is necessary to allude here to the political consequences 
 of the O'Shea case. Immediately after the trial the Irish 
 Nationalist members held an enthusiastic meeting in Dublin, 
 and through the mouths of Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Sexton, and 
 Mr. Healy, declared their unabated confidence in Mr. 
 Parnell. On November 22 they held their customary 
 meeting at the House of Commons for the election of their 
 officers, and then Mr. Parnell, who on entering the room 
 was cordially received, was unanimously re-elected chairman 
 of the party. But in the meanwhile the ' Nonconformist 
 conscience' had become uneasy, and on the 24th Mr. 
 Gladstone wrote to Mr. John Morley saying that Mr, 
 Parnell's * continuance at the present moment in the leader- 
 ship would be productive of consequences disastrous in the 
 highest degree to the cause of Ireland.' Then followed the 
 angry debates in Committee Room No. 15, which engrossed 
 the attention of the House of Commons, and enabled the^ 
 public business of the House to be proceeded with with' 
 extraordinary rapidity through that winter Session. The 
 immediate result of these debates was the severance of the 
 NationaHst Party into two sections — the larger under the 
 nominal leadership of Mr. McCarthy, which desired to act 
 in close harmony with the Gladstonians ; the smaller under 
 Mr. Parnell, which claimed to be independent of any 
 British party. From that moment till the end of the 
 Parliament the old power of the Irish Party in the House 
 of Commons had gone. Its strength had lain in its perfect 
 discipline, in the constancy in the attendance of its members, 
 in their unbroken obedience to the iron will of one resolute 
 leader. Henceforth there was no real heart in their tactics ; 
 and as, m consequence of the split, their money supplies 
 began to fail them, the attendance of Irish members became
 
 14 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 smaller and smaller, and less and less constant. Mr. Sexton, 
 it is true, throughout the remainder of the Parliament has 
 remained steadily in his place, and has shown consummate 
 Parliamentary ability ; but he does not seem to have a 
 following, and of the other leading Nationalists, neither Mr. 
 McCarthy, nor Mr. Healy, nor Mr. Dillon, nor Mr. O'Brien, 
 has shown any capacity since that time for Parliamentary 
 leadership; while Mr. J. Redmond, who has spoken with 
 effect, has been but little in the House. In fact, from the 
 date of the disruption of the old Nationalist Party, it is not 
 Irish questions which have excited with living interest the 
 House of Commons. Twice only since then have incidents 
 in Irish debates aroused attention. The first was in the 
 debate on the Address at the beginning of the Session of 
 1892, when Mr. J. Redmond directly challenged the Glad- 
 stonian leaders to indicate the nature of their Home Rule 
 proposals. The second was at the conclusion of the second 
 reading debate on the Irish Local Government Bill, when 
 Mr. Gladstone attacked Lord Salisbury's references to the 
 attitude of Ulster, and Mr. Balfour answered him with con- 
 spicuous courage and ability. And the interest on both 
 these occasions was excited because of the ulterior, and 
 electioneering, import of the incident. Otherwise since that 
 date it is British social questions — such as thote involved in 
 Mr. Channing's motion on the Hours of Railway Servants, 
 and Mr. Buxton's on Government Contracts, and the Railway 
 Directors' Privilege Case — which have really excited the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Public Expenditure for Relief of Irish Distress. 
 
 The fears that had been entertained of distress in Ireland 
 from a failure of the potato crop were partially realized. 
 Mr. Balfour in the autumn visited the districts affected, and 
 had conferences on the spot with the local authorities and 
 the priests. Everywhere he was received with courtesy, and 
 in many places with evident gratitude and admiration. In 
 the House of Commons on December 4, he moved, in 
 Committee of Supply, a supplementary vote of ;^ 5,000 for 
 relief works, and took the opportunity of describing in detail 
 the proposals of the Government for dealing with the dis-
 
 Ireland 
 
 15 
 
 tress. This was merely a small instalment of the sum 
 eventually voted by Parliament for this purpose. Parliamen- 
 tary Papers, No. 85, Session 1892, show that in 24 unions 
 of 9 counties 161 works were undertaken, and that the sum 
 of ;£t6o,57o was expended : 
 
 
 
 No of 
 
 
 Supervision 
 
 
 County. 
 
 Union. 
 
 Works. 
 
 Wages. 
 
 and 
 Material. 
 
 Totals. 
 
 
 
 
 ^" 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 Donegal ... 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 7,864 
 
 1,249 
 
 9,113 
 
 Clare 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 315 
 
 73 
 
 388 
 
 Kerry 
 
 r 
 
 3 
 
 255 
 
 134 
 
 389 
 
 Cavan 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 269 
 
 lOI 
 
 370 
 
 Shgo 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 1,002 
 
 730 
 
 1,732 
 
 Galway 
 
 4 
 
 37 
 
 45,647 
 
 10.090 
 
 55,737 
 
 Cork 
 
 5 
 
 24 
 
 22,842 
 
 5,155 
 
 29.997 
 
 Mayo 
 
 8 
 
 83 
 
 50004 
 
 14,540 
 
 64,844 
 
 
 24 
 
 161 
 
 128,498 
 
 32,072 
 
 160,570 
 
 'In addition to the sum of ^160,570 shown on this 
 return, expenditure was incurred on the hire of steamers for 
 service on the west coast of Ireland, for the purchase of land 
 and forestry operations thereon in Galway, for the services of* 
 Royal Engineer officers and county surveyors, for inspectors 
 and others employed under the Land Commission and 
 Local Government Board in connection with the administra- 
 tion of the Seed Potato Supply Acts, and extra cost of works 
 on railways attributable to relief operations.' 
 
 A correspondent of the Times, who accompanied Mr. 
 Balfour on his tour a year ago, supplied particulars as 
 the result of a second visit he had paid to some of the 
 scheduled districts of Donegal, Galway, and Mayo, and the 
 adjacent islands off the coast. Writing from Westport, 
 county Mayo, on November 28, he says : 
 
 ' The money has been spent to the best possible advantage. 
 In proof of this it may be noted that fourteen of the works 
 carried out in Galway, Mayo, and Clare, which were measured 
 up and valued at ^{^ 23,400 by Mr. Hill, surveyor of the last-
 
 1 6 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 named county, who is unquestion.ibly one of the most "experienced 
 men in Ireland, were completed for ;,{^2i,8oo, including wages, 
 supervision, and materials. Of course, the first object in view 
 was the immediate 
 
 RELIEF OF THE THOUSANDS OF POOR PEASANTS 
 
 who were threatened with famine. It is satisfactory, however, 
 to know that while that object has been attained with signal 
 success, there has been an entire absence of useless and extrava- 
 gant expenditure or relief of an eleemosynary character. The 
 Government were on the alert long before the period of actual 
 distress arrived, and thus, when it did come, they had all their 
 plans matured. The number of persons in each locality who 
 would be likely to require assistance was not only estimated 
 beforehand, but reports had been prepared setting forth their 
 names and circumstances. Such works as were best calculated 
 to afford the necessary employment, while conferring permanent 
 benefit on the inhabitants, had been mapped out in good time 
 by an experienced officer, Major Peacocke, R.E., to whom, also, 
 was entrusted the duty, in conjunction with the county surveyors 
 and police authorities, of organizing the requisite staff of over- 
 seers, gangers, and supervisors. As these works were intended 
 for the relief of those who lived in very remote districts, and 
 who could not avail themselves of the employment offered on 
 the State railways by reason of the distances at which they lived 
 from the routes of the proposed lines, there was frequently con- 
 siderable difficulty experienced in finding suitable work of a 
 remunerative description close at hand. Many portions of the 
 distressed districts, especially the mountainous parts, were, how- 
 ever, in want of good roads. Other portions were practically 
 isolated at certain periods of the year owing to the absence of 
 bridges, while the people living on the seaboard, and who largely 
 depended on the fishing industry, required boat-slips, harbours, 
 etc. It is pleasing, therefore, to be assured that not only have 
 the works carried on in these places during the present year 
 been the means of saving many thousands of poor people from 
 starvation, but that this will prove of 
 
 LASTING SERVICE TO THE INHABITANTS, 
 
 and help to open up some of the most picturesque spots on the 
 western coast, hitherto practically unknown to the outside world. 
 It was at first intended that these relief works should be merely 
 auxiliaries to the large railway works now in progress ; but 
 after the lapse of a short period, it was found that the relative 
 magnitude of the two works had been reversed — that while the 
 number of persons employed on the railways never exceeded
 
 Ireland 17 
 
 8,000, the total number of applicants for employment in the 
 relief works rose as high as 16,000. In order to prevent imposi- 
 tion through the employment of undeserving people, the most 
 stringent supervision became necessary. The Hsts of distressed 
 persons, previously prepared, after careful inquiry, by the police 
 and the other local authorities, were strictly adhered to, and it 
 was found that this plan was very successful. The labourers 
 were divided into two classes. The first-class were paid in cash 
 at rates varying from is. 2d. a day for able-bodied men, with 
 IS. 6d. a week for lodgings, if they came more than five miles 
 from their homes, to 8d. a day for boys under sixteen. The 
 second-class labourers were paid in kind at the rate of six stones 
 of Indian meal or its equivalent in flour per week, by means of 
 cheques on local tradesmen. The police were required to report 
 to the Government weekly as to the price and quality of the 
 stores sold in their district, and to inquire into any cause of com- 
 plaint. When the season for gathering seaweed for manure and 
 the seed-time arrived, it was found necessary to adopt strong 
 measures before the people could be taught the necessity of 
 looking to the future. The attraction of fairly remunerative 
 wages in the works would have been sufficient to induce them 
 to neglect their own interests, and to let the time pass for culti- 
 vating their little plots of land. They were not allowed, how- 
 ever, to follow this foolish course. Their hours were shortened, 
 and some of the men were compelled to devote even half their 
 time to their own affairs. It is to be hoped that this lesson in 
 thrift, brought so forcibly before them, will not be soon forgotten. 
 With the money which they earned at the works, as well as with 
 grants from the fund, amounting to over ^50,000, collected by 
 Lord Zetland and Mr. Balfour, for those unable to work, the 
 people purchased potatoes and other seeds of the best quahty^ 
 that the local authorities could procure. The season has, fortu- 
 nately, been favourable, and the result is that at present peasants 
 along the whole of the West coast find themselves in a position 
 of comparative affluence, and with brighter prospects than they 
 have known for many years past. They are naturally a grateful 
 people. 
 
 GRATITUDE TO MR. BALFOUR. 
 
 I was quite prepared to hear them allude to Mr. Balfour in terms 
 of gratitude, but it would be difficult to convey any idea of the 
 warmth with which they spoke of that distinguished statesman, 
 or the fervour of the prayers which those poor peasants mingled 
 with their references to the right hon. gentleman. I was not a 
 little puzzled, at first, to know in what light to regard the obser- 
 vation of an old gentleman, who shouted from a field by the 
 wayside to a lad who was lazily contemplating a pig with long 
 
 2
 
 i8 Six Years of Unionist (Government 
 
 legs and lanky sides which careered along the road in front of 
 my vehicle, "Arrah, Mike, will ye stir yourself? Don't ye see 
 Arthur James running away ?"' I discovered afterwards that the 
 little articles which the relief works had enabled them to add 
 to their miserable stock of furniture, and sometimes even an 
 implement of agriculture of a better class than they had hitherto 
 been able to afford, were often named after the First Lord of the 
 Treasury. Mr. Balfour was the first British statesman that many 
 of these people had ever heard of, and certainly the first that 
 any of them had ever seen. They fully expected they would 
 have had another visit from the Chief Secretary before the works 
 closed, and they expressed themselves greatly disappointed that 
 they had not an opportunity of showing their gratitude. I heard 
 of one exception, and one only, in the whole of the distressed 
 districts. 
 
 ' " Don't thank me," said Major Peacocke to an intelligent 
 fellow who had been profuse in his expressions of gratitude ; 
 "thank Mr. Balfour." 
 
 '"Well, sir," he replied, hat in hand, "if you don't mind, I 
 would rather thank God for having put the good into his 
 heart." 
 
 * In addition to the making of new roads and the repairing of 
 old ones which had become almost useless, through neglect, the 
 works have included many much-needed piers, boat-slips, and 
 sea-walls, and some of tlie better class of bridges. The manner 
 in which operations have been carried out shows how quickly 
 these uneducated people can be taught, when directed by skilful 
 men like the Royal Engineers, who acted as instructors under 
 the county surveyors. Great, too, as was the necessity for many 
 of the works on the mainland, it would be difficult to exaggerate 
 the importance of the improvements which a comparatively sniall 
 expenditure has effected on the islands lying along the coast. 
 The only islands which Mr. Balfour visited were M'Weevish and 
 Achill. The Chief Secretary was only able to proceed as far as 
 the little fishing hamlet of Dooega, on the southern shore of 
 Achill, and even to that point, which is not half-way across the 
 island, Miss Balfour and the rest of the party were obliged to 
 proceed on foot over a mountain-path, the car-road having 
 terminated a couple of miles away. The road has now been 
 completed, not only in Dooega, but around one of the most 
 attractive parts of the bold coast-line, opening up a new tourist 
 route, which is likely to prove very attracti\e. Mr. Balfour's 
 attention was called to a dangerous causeway or passage over a 
 swamp dividing two parts of the island, and he promised to 
 have
 
 Iret,and 19 
 
 a bridge constructed at his own expense. 
 
 This work has also been carried out, and Balfour Bridge has 
 proved a great boon to the people. The railway near, being 
 constructed from Westport to Achill Sound, will not only enable 
 the Achill islanders to find a ready market for their fish, but it 
 will facilitate the carrying out of the idea so long entertained by 
 Mr. Jackson of placing steamers in Blacksod Bay for the 
 purpose of opening up Westport to the fishermen living in the 
 Mullet. M'Weevish Island is sufficiently close to the mainland 
 that it can be approached by a long causeway. This has been 
 widened, and now admits of carts passing from the mainland, 
 so that M'Weevish has practically ceased to be an island. Very 
 important works have also been carried oiit on North and South 
 Inniskea Islands, Arran, Clare; Innisturk, Innisboffin, and other 
 islands, which were visited by Lord and Lady Zetland and Miss 
 Balfour in the early part of this year. They consist mainly of 
 roads which now render vehicular traffic possible, and boat-slips 
 and shelters for the hardy fishermen who obtain a precarious 
 livehhood along this tempestuous coast. Now that safe landing- 
 places have been provided, and good roads made through these 
 islands, they will, no doubt, in future receive some of the advan- 
 tages arising from the tourist traffic, which has increased greatly 
 throughout Connemara and all the Western Highlands since 
 Mr. Balfour, by his historic visits, attracted universal attention 
 to this remote and lovely country.' — Twies^ November 30. 
 
 That the people benefited by these works are sensible of 
 the good work accomplished is shown by the following fact. 
 Mr. Dillon, M.P., criticising in a speech the expenditure in 
 Mayo, remarked that he had never asked for the expenditure, • 
 and that the people of Ireland regretted it ; whereupon the 
 Swinford Board of Guardians held a meeting at which fifteen 
 elected members (and no ex-officio members) were present, 
 and passed a resolution giving a most sharp and peremptory 
 contradiction to Mr. Dillon's statement that the people of 
 Ireland regretted the relief expenditure. Their resolution 
 expressed the most cordial recognition of Mr. Balfour's 
 timely help, which alone prevented, they say, real famine in 
 the district, and they went on to speak in the following 
 terms of Mr. Dillon's attitude : ' Mr. Dillon's assertion that 
 he never asked for the railway may be true. He does not 
 appear to ask for much that would be for the benefit of his 
 constituents ; and although we have been granted this boon, 
 unsought for by our Member of Parliament, we beg to thank
 
 20 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 Mr. Balfour for it again. And we beg furtlier to express our 
 disapprobation of that manner of representation which con- 
 sists in standing aloof while our people are in the grip of 
 famine, and only coming forward to interfere when it is 
 supposed that political capital can be manufactured out ot 
 untrue and carping criticism of the man who put bread into 
 the mouths of the hungry.' 
 
 But it was advisable to supplement the Government 
 expenditure by voluntary funds, and early in January, 1891, 
 ]>ord Zetland and Mr. Balfour issued an appeal for money. 
 It was largely responded to in Great Britain, and the 
 appended leading article from the Times summarizes the 
 mode in which it was expended. 
 
 * The official Report, just printed, on the administration of the 
 Irish Distress Fund shows exactly the circumstances under 
 which the fund was started, the forms of distress which it was 
 especially intended to relieve, the agents employed, and the 
 rules adopted in distributing it, and the very marked success 
 with which the work of relief has been carried through. The 
 fund, it will be remembered, was inaugurated in January, 1891, 
 by a joint letter put out by Lord Zetland and Mr. Balfour, calling 
 public attention to the existence of grave distress in Ireland, 
 due very largely to the failure of the potato crop. The West of 
 Ireland was the part in which there was the chief suffering, and 
 though in many parts of the affected districts there was actual 
 or prospective help secured by the railways work and relief 
 works for which special Parliamentaiy votes had been obtained, 
 yet there were places and forms of distress which these did not 
 reach, and for which, in consequence, some further supple- 
 mentary relief was needed. An appeal thus authenticated was 
 quite certain to be promptly and generously met. Contributions 
 to the fund flowed in at once. More than four thousand pounds 
 had been sent in at the date at which the letter was published. 
 Nearly the same amount was received on the day following. 
 Within the first week more than ^20,000 stood to the credit of 
 the fund, and this was finally raised to ^50,287 os. 7d. in money, 
 and donations of clothing representing about 14,000 children's 
 garments were also forwarded to Lady Zetland and Miss 
 Balfour. 
 
 ' The question next arose by what agency this fund could be 
 most usefully employed in accordance with the principles laid 
 down in the joint letter of January, 1891. The first thing to be 
 secured was that it must not be so administered as to give 
 encouragement to professional mendicancy — a result which had,
 
 Ireland 2 1 
 
 in fact, followed from much of the charitable expenditure in past 
 periods. Nor was it found easy to estimate, with any approach 
 to accuracy, the amount of the prevalent distress in the several 
 districts in which the fund was to be spent. Exaggerated 
 accounts were sent in, not only by the expectant recipients, but 
 from seemingly well-informed sources, and this not from any 
 deliberate intention to mislead, but because, as the letter sug- 
 gested, habits of severe and disciplined accuracy are not the 
 most common characteristics of the Irish people of any class. 
 Then there was the further point to be borne in mind that there 
 was relief already going on through the railway works and relief 
 works, and it was necessary to take care that the Distress Fund did 
 not clash with these, or allow any persons to receive as charity 
 what they could, if they so pleased, earn as wages by work. It 
 was finally settled that the operations of the fund were to be 
 carried on under the following heads : Relief was to be given to 
 distressed and helpless families ; poor children in the schools 
 were to be supplied with food and clothing ; and special supple- 
 mentary grants were to be bestowed where a special case could 
 be made out for them, either in relief of distress or in aid of self- 
 help by the development of local industries. The office of the 
 fund was established at Dublin Castle, and the administration 
 of it was placed under the supervision of three chief inspectors 
 and their assistants— one for the North-West district, including 
 the counties of Donegal, Mayo, and Sligo ; one for the Western 
 district, including Galway and Roscommon ; and one for the 
 South- Western district, including Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, 
 and Tipperary. These divisions make up conjointly the districts 
 in most urgent need of relief. They form together nearly one- 
 half of the total area of the country. In some of them the 
 potato crop of the autumn of 1890 had averaged from one-half 
 to one-third of the ordinary yield ; in others, and especially in 
 the congested and poverty-stricken districts on the Atlantic sea- 
 board, where the potato still forms the staple food of the people, 
 the crop had been no more than a bare one-fourth of the usual 
 return. The apportionment of the relief in these districts was, 
 as might be expected, a matter of no small difficulty. The 
 method adopted was as follows : In the first place, provisional 
 lists of distressed and helpless families were obtained through 
 the local constabulary, and these were then revised by 
 the chief inspectors, aided by local committees, at each of which 
 the clergy of all denominations, the dispensary doctor, and the 
 relieving officer were invited to attend. The result of these 
 detailed inquiries was that some names were struck off the lists 
 and others added. The final settlement was left to the chief 
 inspectors, and all applications received at the central office on 
 behalf of persons not already included were also forwarded to
 
 22 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 them. These applications came in in abundance from all parts 
 of the country, some from persons clearly ineligible under the 
 rules of relief, others where the cases stated seemed to call for 
 consideration. The relief, it was determined, was to be given 
 only in kind — so much Indian meal, or its equivalent in flour or 
 oatmeal, according to the number of persons in the family ; and 
 this was given by relief cheques, issued weekly, and entitling 
 their holders to obtain meal from any local trader. This system, 
 we are told, gave general satisfaction. Each family relieved 
 was enabled to deal with whom it liked ; trade was thus kept in 
 its natural channels, and the local traders, obtaining monthly 
 cash payments, were substantially benefited by the transactions. 
 In carrying out and supervising these arrangements, great help 
 was given by the Royal Irish Constabulary. They first assisted 
 in preparing the provisional lists ; the distribution of the weekly 
 relief cheques was a further work which they undertook ; they 
 also kept an eye on the operation of the fund, so as to discover 
 and put a stop to any instances of abuse, and to keep the chief 
 inspectors regularly supplied with information as to the quality 
 and price of the goods furnished to the cheque-holders. These 
 and other duties, entailing considerable extra work, were 
 gratuitously discharged, and we learn with pleasure that during 
 the whole period of relief no complaint reached the Distress 
 Office as to the manner in which the duties were performed. It 
 was under this first heading of the relief of distressed and help- 
 less families that the chief expenditure was incurred. The total 
 amount which thus passed, directly or indirectly, through the 
 hands of the constabulary was upwards of thirty thousand pounds. 
 The outlay incurred by them in the several processes was only 
 £126 17s. 5d., or 8s. 6d. per ;^ioo — a fact which proves that no 
 small part of the expense of relief was paid out of their own 
 pockets by the officers and men of the force. 
 
 ' The relief granted to children in the schools was in the form 
 either of food or of clothing. The total sum expended in grants 
 for food was ^8,673 is. id. The clothing was very largely 
 supplied by special gifts in kind, and these were supplemented 
 by the purchase of goods to the amount of ^1,608 lis. lod. in 
 all. The total number of garments distributed was 28,768. 
 This branch of the work was greatly facilitated by the cordial 
 co-operation of such of the school managers as were willing to 
 avail themselves of the help offered by the fund. They were not 
 all thus willing. Eighty-eight of them refused help for the 
 children under their charge, some through fear that the distri- 
 bution of food might interfere with the educational efficiency of 
 the school ; some few based their objection on political grounds, 
 refusing to accept assistance which came from members of the 
 Government ; others either refused without assigning reasons,
 
 i 
 
 Ireland 23 
 
 or sent no answer to the Distress Office. The miscellaneous 
 supplemental grants are, some of them, set down under the title 
 of compassionate grants, given in consequence of information 
 gained by the visits of Lord and Lady Zetland and Miss Balfour 
 to the distressed districts. The reception given to the visitors 
 by the people of the districts to which they came was most 
 cordial, and the addresses presented by all classes and denomina- 
 tions clearly proved their grateful recognition of what was being- 
 done for them. The grants for the development of industries 
 will, it is hoped, be productive of permanent benefit. The 
 needlework classes which were started with help from the fund 
 are still in many instances going on independently, under the 
 supervision of the ladies who were instrumental in forming 
 them. The general result of the fund has thus been satisfactory 
 in every way. ' It has proved to be the means of tiding over a 
 great crisis ; it has preserved from the extremity of want a large 
 number of families who would not have been reached by help in 
 any other form ; and it has done something to set going an 
 industrial movement which promises to be of permanent benefit. 
 The statements of accounts appended to the Report show that 
 the total net amount of the fund was ^49,067 8s. 5d., of which 
 ;{^2,7i4 1 8s. 9d. remains as an unspent balance. The rest has 
 been laid out as follows, viz. : ^"40,603 19s. id. in direct relief 
 to helpless families and in food and clothing for schools ; 
 ^335 i8s. 6d. in supplemental miscellaneous grants ; ^3,335 6s. 3d 
 in the development of industries and in relief works ; while the 
 total cost of the administration of the fund in all its departments 
 has been ^2,077 5s. lod. for salaries, printing and stationery, 
 and incidental expenses.' 
 
 The Land Purchase Bill and its Operation. 
 
 In 1 89 1, in the House of Commons, the Land Purchase 
 Bill occupied much time in Committee. Under this Bill 
 the total amount which can be advanced is ;^33, 000,000. 
 As Radicals are fond of ignorantly asserting that it is incon- 
 sistent for Unionists to have opposed the Gladstonian Land 
 Purchase scheme of i886, and to be supporters of this Act, 
 it is well to quote two letters written on this point. 
 
 Mr. R. P. Martin, of Chesham, having drawn Mr. Balfour's 
 attention to certain statements made by Mr. Mundella when 
 addressing his constituents at Sheffield, received the follow- 
 ing letter : 
 
 'Irish Office, September 16, 1890. 
 
 'Dear Sir,— Mr. Balfour has desired me to reply to your 
 letter, in which you enclose an extract from a report of a speech
 
 24 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 delivered by Mr. Mundella. The report must, I am forced to 
 think, be inaccurate, so astonishing is the account there given 
 of the two schemes for land purchase in Ireland brought forward, 
 the one in 1886 by Mr. (Gladstone, and the other in 1890 by Mr. 
 Balfour. We are told that the object of both schemes was to buy 
 out the Irish landlords. This is, no doubt, a fair description of 
 Mr. Gladstone's primary object. He held that a moral obliga- 
 tion lay upon the framers of a Home Rule Bill to provide a 
 means of escape for all landlords who did not care to abide the 
 issue of that experiment. It is not a fair description of the aim 
 of the Government. 
 
 'The buying out of the Irish landlords was merely incidental 
 to Mr. Balfour's scheme, the primary object of which was to 
 enable the Irish tenant of a landlord willing to sell to buy his 
 landlord's interest for whatever he thought it might be worth. 
 Passing from the relatively unimportant comparison of the ends 
 contemplated to the contrast of the means adopted in the two 
 schernes, I find that especial emphasis is laid upon the liability 
 and risk incurred by the English taxpayer under each. The 
 rosy view of his safety under the one, his dark prospects under 
 the other, are at once the most striking and the most incredible 
 features in Mr. Mundella's picture. It would, indeed, be hard 
 to conceive a more misleading account of the security under 
 Mr. Gladstone's scheme, or one more inaccurate of the security 
 under Mr. Balfour's, than those here put forward for the sake of 
 effective contrast. Let us examine the first. 
 
 'We are told that in the Bill of 1886 Mr. Gladstone proposed 
 to have the whole revenue of Ireland as security, and an Irish 
 Parliament to endorse that security, with the whole of the Irish 
 people liable to taxation to pay up any deficiency. In a sense 
 this is true. But, so far from allaying the distrust of the British 
 taxpayer, these very provisions are calculated to arouse in him 
 no other sentiments than those of acute and well-founded alarm. 
 Three several levies upon the Irish population were contem- 
 plated in the Bill of 1886— first. Imperial taxes ; second, instal- 
 ments upon the capital advanced for land purchase ; third, the 
 taxes imposed by the Irish Parliament for affairs exclusively 
 Irish. All sums collected upon each of these accounts were to 
 be paid into the hands of a Receiver-General. It was then his 
 duty to pay over in full— first, the Imperial contribution due to 
 the Exchequer ; and secondly, the interest and sinking fund of 
 the money advanced for land purchase. The extremely problem- 
 atical residue was, lastly, to be returned to the Irish Parlia- 
 ment for the conduct of Irish affairs. In gauging the merits of 
 the scheme, four things must be borne in mind : (i) That the 
 wish for Home Rule is, according to Home Rule leaders, largely 
 based on the desire of Ireland to tax herself with a view to
 
 Ireland ' 25 
 
 developing her industrial resources ; (2) that the Imperial con- 
 tribution claimed from Ireland was declared by Irish members 
 to be far too large ; (3) that the universal price of twenty years' 
 purchase for all Irish land is declared by the same authorities 
 to be too high ; (4) that the danger of repudiation is not an 
 economical, but a political danger. In the light of these four 
 facts many are found to doubt the advantage of having an Irish 
 Parliament to endorse the security — that is to say, of giving an 
 enormous power to a political assembly whose chief desire is to 
 spend money on Ireland, and of declaring at the same time that 
 not a penny shall they spend until they have disgorged an 
 Imperial tax and a land tax, both of which they consider exces- 
 sive and unfair. 
 
 ' Turning now to the account of the security under the Bill 
 of 1890, we find the following astounding statement : "That the 
 land was to be sold, and the tenant to pay the capital advanced 
 in instalments over forty-nine years, without any security what- 
 ever but the land itself" In the first place, it is not the land 
 that is to be sold, but the landlord's interest in it alone ; and of 
 this interest only four-fifths are advanced by the Exchequer, 
 with, for security, the whole value of the land, including the 
 interest of the landlord and tenant. 
 
 ' This sufBciently flagrant error sinks, however, into absolute 
 insignificance before the amazing statement that the land is the 
 sole security. Omitting, for the sake of argument, such collateral 
 securities as the landlord's fifth, a sum, of course, equal to 
 ^6,000,000, if ^{^30,000,000 is advanced, the tenants' insurance 
 and the reserve of ;^2oo,ooo accumulated from the Exchequer 
 contribution to Ireland, the broad fact remains that the total 
 advance authorized by the Bill did not exceed by one farthing 
 the capitalized value of a guarantee fund composed, not of a 
 revenue raised in Ireland, but of funds annually contributed to 
 Ireland by the Imperial Exchequer. 
 
 ' Under the scheme of the Government, the British taxpayer 
 relied, in order to recover his money, not upon the endorsement 
 of the security by an Irish Parliament, but on the simpler device 
 of keeping it in his pocket. 
 
 ' Yours faithfully, 
 
 'George Wyndham.' 
 
 {Times ^ September 30, 1890.) 
 
 In the course of a letter dated April 21, 1891, Mr. Balfour 
 writes with reference to Mr. Gladstone's criticism on the 
 Irish Land Purchase Bill : 
 
 ' He objects to a scheme involving a liability which " begins at 
 30 millions," and which, he asserts, may " reach 100 millions" ;
 
 26 Six Years of Unionist Cover n^ment 
 
 though he himself is the author of a scheme under which the 
 hability began at 50 millions and might have reached 150 
 millions. He regards a policy as intolerable which would meet 
 default on the part of the purchasers by evictions ; but he was 
 himself the author of a scheme by which this intolerable policy 
 was forced upon the nascent energies of the Irish executive 
 which he desired to call into existence. He objects to the Bill 
 because it takes as security for the Treasury property belonging 
 to persons who are not first consulted as to their willingness to 
 become parties to such a transaction. But he himself was the 
 author of a Bill, open, in a far greater degree, to a similar objec- 
 tion. The Bill of the Government, no doubt, requires the 
 locality to mortgage a portion of its resources to cover the 
 Treasury loan. But those resources are not private property. 
 They are not even drawn from the rates. They are contri- 
 butions to the rates by the British taxpayer, while the chance of 
 their being drawn upon to any serious extent, even in case of 
 default, is remote and dubious. Mr. Gladstone's Bill, on the 
 other hand, required the tenants of Ireland, at the dictation of 
 their landlords, to buy, whether they liked it or not, at a price 
 which they had no voice in fixing, thus making themselves 
 personally and immediately responsible for forty-nine years, and 
 to the whole extent of their property, for the punctual payment 
 of their annuities to the Irish Treasury. And not content with 
 compelling the tenants to buy, he compelled the Irish Legisla- 
 ture to pledge on their behalf every shilling of Irish revenue, 
 whether that revenue was or was not contributed by the classes 
 who have an immediate interest in agrarian questions. Finally, 
 his followers are opposing, line by line and clause by clause, a 
 measure accepted in its main principles by every section of 
 every Irish party, eagerly desired by the great bulk of the Irish 
 agricultural community, and involving no risk, theoretical or 
 practical, to the British taxpayer. If it involves, as it certainly 
 does involve, the pledging of British credit, the social ends 
 which it is calculated to attain are assuredly worthy of the em- 
 ployment even of this great instrument — an instrument to the 
 use of which Mr. Gladstone himself was committed, and to which 
 not a week ago he declared Ireland was "justly entitled."' — 
 Thnes, April 23. 
 
 In the debate on the Address at the commencement of the 
 Session of 1892, it was roundly asserted by Mr. Sexton that 
 this Act had proved to be a failure. Following him in the 
 debate on March 29, Mr. T. W. Russell thus dealt with this 
 assertion : 
 
 ' What had the Land Purchase Acts done, in spite of the hon. 
 members below the gangway ? Up to March i last, under these
 
 Ireland 27 
 
 Acts, 23,781 loans had been actually sanctioned by the Land 
 Commission. That meant that 23,781 freeholders had been 
 created. A good deal had been said about Ulster ; and he 
 would show that that province had not fared badly in the general 
 division. Out of the 23,781 freeholders created, 12,554 had been 
 in Ulster, 3,839 in Leinster, 4,496 in Munster, and 2,892 in 
 Connaught. No one, therefore, could say that Ulster had been 
 deprived of its fair share of the benefits from the Acts. (Cheers.) 
 Then as to the working of the present Act. The resolution was 
 declared to be for the purpose of making operative an Act 
 which was practically inoperative, and it had several times been 
 asserted in the House — notably by the hon. member for West 
 Belfast in his speech on the Address— that the Act was a 
 failure. The number of applications for loans under the Act 
 were paraded before the House as though the figures were com- 
 plete evidence of failure. When the measure was passing 
 through the House of Commons there was a surplus of three- 
 quarters of a million under the old Ashbourne Acts not disposed 
 of, and the Government at first proposed to amalgamate that 
 surplus with the Land Purchase Bill. Finally, however, it was 
 decided to leave the money where it was, and allow it to be 
 worked out. Now, what had taken place since August last, 
 when the Bill became law? In August there were 456 applica- 
 tions for loans, amounting to ^187,151 ; in September there 
 were 982 applications, amounting to ^^343, 544 ; in October there 
 were 216 applications, amounting to ^80,981 ; in November 
 there were 69 applications, amounting to ^32,282 ; and in 
 December there were 64 applications, amounting to ;!^9,ioi. 
 Thus the total under the Ashbourne Acts during the last five 
 months of 1891 was 1,787 applications for a gross sum of 
 ^653,059. Next, what happened in the last three months under 
 the new Act ? In October there were four applications for 
 loans, amounting to ^943 ; in November 66 applications, 
 amounting to ^35,924 ; and in December there were 105 appli- 
 cations, amounting to ^79,584. Thus the total for the three 
 months under the new Act was 175 appHcations for ^116,451 
 (cheers) ; and the grand total under the various Acts from 
 August to December was 1,962 applications for ^^769,5 10. It 
 was therefore impossible to say that the operation of land pur- 
 chase was not, up to December, 1891, going forward as rapidly 
 as it had ever done before. (Cheers.) It was perfectly natural 
 that the tenants and the landlords should strive to get under the 
 old Act as long as possible, for it gave them more beneficial 
 terms than the new Act. (Hear, hear.) In the six years there 
 had been 29,385 applications altogether, giving an average of 
 4,897 per annum, or of 408 per month. Therefore, the average 
 number of applications for five months of those six years would
 
 28 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 be 2,040 ; and the last five months of 1891 gave 1,962. There- 
 fore, whatever had become of the new Land Purchase Act, the 
 operation of purchase was going on as rapidly as ever, and there 
 was no symptom of failure. (Hear, hear.) He would now turn 
 to another set of figures. Up to December 31, 1891, there had 
 been only about 200 applications under the new Act ; but he 
 had asked the Chief Secretary for the figures up to the most 
 recent date, and he found that up to yesterday — therefore, for a 
 period practically of three months, because the Act was not 
 made use of before — there had been 1,253 applications for loans 
 amounting to /444,6i2. (Cheers.) It turned out, then, that the 
 Act which hon. members below the gangway, and even right 
 hon. members above the gangway, had so precipitately pro- 
 nounced to be a failure was nothing of the kind. (Cheers.) 
 They had been a little too premature, and these figures demon- 
 strated that the operation of purchase for the last three months 
 had been going on more rapidly than at any period under the 
 Ashbourne Acts. (Loud cheers.) 
 
 At the beginning of this quotation, Mr. Russell gives the 
 latest returns of the working of the Ashbourne Acts. It is 
 interesting to supplement those figures with the following, 
 which show how the instalments of purchase-money have 
 been repaid. The total amount of instalments which be- 
 came due for the five and a half years to May 1, 1891, was 
 ;£'639,388. Of this, at the beginning of this year, there 
 remained due;^i,5oo. There became due on December i, 
 i89i,;^i29,882, and in the course of that month the Com- 
 missioners had received;^ 1 04, 000 of it. 
 
 Collapse of the Plan of Campaign in 1891. 
 
 In Ireland the most conspicuous proof of the continued 
 improvement was afforded by the collapse of the Plan of 
 Campaign at the crucial point of conflict, Tipperary. On 
 May 29 the Times correspondent reported : 
 
 ' The deputation of the Tipperary tenants who went to Chester 
 for the purpose of settling with Mr. Smith-Barry obtained from 
 him the terms on which he would consent to allow them to go 
 back to their holdings. The terms are substantially as follows : 
 Allowance to agricultural tenants the same as in 1889 ; the town 
 tenants to have their rents individually considered and revised 
 where necessary ; agricultural tenants to be allowed to go to the 
 Land Court for revision. Mr. Smith-Barry will restore the
 
 Ireland 29 
 
 tenants to their former position in ground-rent cases, costs only 
 between party and party to be borne by the tenants ; tenants to 
 pay half arrears on going back, and pass a bill for the remainder, 
 payable six months after date. These conditions only hold good 
 if accepted before June i. It is said that Mr. Smith-Barry 
 exhibited no anxiety to have the terms accepted, believing the 
 offer to be a liberal one. A telegram from Tipperary to-night 
 states that the majority of the tenants have accepted the terms, 
 and are now engaged in returning to their former holdings. 
 Some individuals personally interested in New Tipperary are 
 opposed to the settlement, but at a public meeting last night the 
 foregoing proposals were submitted and unanimously accepted. 
 Gratitude was expressed to the gentlemen who formed the 
 deputation to Chester. The town to-day looked bright and 
 busy, and the several shops reopened did good business. 
 Everybody is relieved to find that " mad Tipperary " has been 
 restored to reason.' 
 
 On November 24 Mr. Robert Popham Bell, J. P., county 
 Tipperary, writes to the Times : 
 
 ' I have been residing for many years close to Tipperary, and 
 am therefore intimately acquainted with the people. I am very 
 sorry to say great distress prevails amongst many of Mr. Smith- 
 Barry's tenants who left their houses and farms, and though 
 many have returned to their holdings, they have lost the savings 
 of a lifetime ; others, through absolute want, cannot return ; and 
 in some cases those who two years ago had flourishing busi- 
 nesses are now ruined. I do not refer to those who were boy- 
 cotted for refusing to go out of their farms and shops, but to 
 those who joined in the agitation, and who are now left almost 
 to starve.' 
 
 The following is significant of the changed feeling in the 
 place : 
 
 ' Lieutenant-Colonel Caddell, late resident magistrate in 
 Tipperary, has received the following address from householders 
 of the town and the neighbourhood, chiefly tenants on the Smith- 
 Barry estate : 
 
 ' " Dear Sir, — We, the undersigned inhabitants of the town 
 and neighbourhood oif Tipperary, do not wish you to depart 
 without expressing our grateful acknowledgment of the kindly 
 services you have rendered in bringing about a settlement of 
 the unhappy rent dispute in Tipperary. Only a short time 
 amongst us, we came to learn your friendly intentions, that it 
 was your great desire to assist in re-establishing peace in our
 
 30 Six Ykars of Unionist Govern mknt 
 
 town, and to restore it to its former position of prosperity. 
 Recognising^ the sincerity of your action, we co-operated with 
 you in your efforts to effect an amicable settlement, which we 
 are convinced, if further delayed, would bring ruin to our fine 
 town and poverty to its people. Owing largely to your exertions, 
 persevered in amidst great difficulties, Tipperary town has been 
 saved, and its inhabitants have re-entered on the path of peace, 
 prosperity, and happiness." Here follow seventy-five signa- 
 tures.' 
 
 Coming to a later date, and answering a question in the 
 House of Commons, the Attorney-General for Ireland was 
 able to state that on April i, 1892, there were five persons 
 in custody under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) 
 Act, 1887. They w^ere convicted of riot and unlawful 
 assembly. There are no persons either wholly or partially 
 boycotted in Ireland at the present time. 
 
 The Irish Local Government Bill, 1892. 
 
 In the Session of 1892, the main Irish measures of the 
 Government were the Local Government Bill and the Irish 
 National Education Bill. 
 
 The Irish Local Government Bill was introduced by 
 Mr. Balfour on February 18. In a dispassionate speech he 
 denied that it was brought forward in any way as an alter- 
 native to Home Rule. Its object was to give to Ireland 
 popularly elected local bodies for the transaction of local 
 business. By it both County and Baronial Councils would 
 be elected, the latter corresponding to the proposed District 
 Councils for England. Their members would be elected 
 by the democratic Parliamentary suffrage. To them w^ould 
 be transferred all the functions at present discharged by the 
 Grand Juries, with other duties in addition. In fact, the 
 Irish County Councils would have powers in connection 
 with the administration of w^oods and forests, of infirmaries, 
 of the Factory Acts, and under the sanitary laws, which are 
 not possessed by the English County Councils. The safe- 
 guards proposed by the Bill for the protection of minorities, 
 and for the prevention of the abuse of their powers by 
 corrupt or partisan councils, were these: (i) The exclusion 
 of illiterates from the franchise. (2) The cumulative system
 
 Ireland 31 
 
 of voting as it exists in School Board elections in England. 
 (3) The creation in each county of a Joint Committee, com- 
 posed of seven nominees of the County Council, and of 
 seven nominees of the Grand Jury, whose consent should be 
 requisite to any capital expenditure proposed by any County 
 Council. (4) The power given to twenty cess-payers by 
 petition to a Judge of Assize to arraign before two Judges a 
 County Council on the charge of persistent disobedience to 
 the law, or of malversation, or of oppression. On proof of 
 any of these charges the councillors responsible are to be 
 removed, and their places filled by persons appointed by the 
 Lord-Lieutenant. 
 
 It was received by every section of the Opposition with 
 'vacant laughter and inarticulate indignation.' Mr. J. 
 Morley, rising immediately after Mr. Balfour, said : ' The 
 country will see through this monstrous imposture, and will 
 see that the measure you have brought in containing such a 
 proposal as that is a mockery of the House of Commons, 
 and a falsification of your pledges, and is a just ground for 
 new and fresh irritation in Ireland.' Sir W. Harcourt said : 
 ' A more insulting Bill to the people of Ireland — more insult- 
 ing in its provisions, and in the manner in which it has been 
 introduced — cannot be imagined/ while Mr. J. McCarthy 
 and Mr. J. Redmond endeavoured to excel one another in 
 their vituperation of the Bill. Mr. Redmond called it ' a sham 
 and an insult.' Mr. McCarthy said 'Irish members ought 
 to have nothing to do with it, and that they ought to pro- 
 claim this feeling from the beginning and reject the unclean 
 thing.' He would like to give only one piece of advice to 
 Mr. Balfour, and that was, 'Take your Bill, and put it into 
 the fire.' 
 
 The debate on the second reading began on May 19, 
 and was concluded on the 24th. Its rejection was moved by 
 Mr. Sexton, who was supported in this course by both 
 sections of the Nationalists and by the Gladstonians. The 
 Bill, on the other hand, received the cordial support of 
 the Ulster Unionist members, and of the Liberal Unionist 
 Party. In support of the contention that in the creation of 
 popularly elected local councils in Ireland some safeguards 
 were necessary, (i) the actual misdeeds of Irish local 
 bodies in the past were recounted, and (2) the express in-
 
 32 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 tention, authoritatively announced, of the Nationah'st Party 
 to abuse the powers to be given to such bodies in the future 
 was insisted upon. As to (i), some of the instances re- 
 ferred to were these: In 1884, when the normal rate of 
 relief in the Roscommon Union was from is. 6d. to 3s., 
 that Board of Guardians gave ;Q\ a week to the families of 
 suspects, although they were people possessing land and 
 stock. In 1886 Mr. J. Morley obtained a grant of ^20,000 
 for rehef for certain unions. In six weeks the number of 
 persons in receipt of rehef in those unions rose from 1,000 
 to 100,000, and ;^ 36, 000 was spent on the security of the 
 ;^2o,ooo. As an example of oppression, on September 19, 
 1890, the Tipperary Board of Guardians unanimously passed 
 a resolution expressing approval of boycotting and the Plan 
 of Campaign. In carrying out the Labourers Acts, 
 Boards of Guardians had frequently selected the land of 
 obnoxious persons on which to build the cottages. A right 
 of appeal against the decisions of the Boards was given by 
 the Acts of the Privy Council ; and out of 227 appeals that 
 were brought, 196 succeeded, on the ground that the selec- 
 tion of the land had been vexatious, or for the purpose of 
 annoyance, punishment, or revenge upon the individual 
 owners. 
 
 As to (2), Mr. Balfour said : ' It is undoubtedly the fact 
 that one party in Ireland, largely represented in this House, 
 have announced it to be their intention to use social warfare 
 against a class as a means of obtaining their political object. 
 They do not deny that. They w^ill not deny that they have 
 done their best to carry it out. Is it not absurd to ignore 
 these unconcealed indications of their policy which they 
 have been good enough to give us, and to hand over those 
 classes against whidi the threats have been used absolutely 
 unprotected ?' And more specifically Mr. Chamberlain 
 quoted from U?iiied Ireland these sentences : ' The grant of 
 Local Government to Ireland would sell the pass as effectu- 
 ally as a Home Rule Parliament,' and, ' We will unscrupu- 
 lously use every position we can capture, board-room or 
 town-hall, as a Home Rule fortress, and drive the enemy 
 unsparingly off the ground.' 
 
 In defence of the two particular safeguards, viz., that of 
 the Joint Committee, and of the power of arraigning and re-
 
 Ireland 33 
 
 moving a County Council which had been specially attacked, 
 it was argued that the provision as to the Joint Committee 
 was substantially identical with a clause in the Scotch Local 
 Government Act, which created similarly a Joint Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 The safeguard was proposed in the case of Ireland 
 because of the great disproportion in most districts between 
 the large number of very small ratepayers and the few land- 
 owners. As Mr. Balfour said, ' You have (in the south and 
 west of Ireland) an enormous number of small occupiers 
 paying annual rates of 4s. and 5s. and 6s. who have from 
 time to time been aided by the establishment of relief works 
 out of public funds, and who are therefore accustomed to 
 look for employment to such works as roads and bridges as 
 part of the ways of satisfying their needs. These men, if it 
 were not for the provision of a Joint Committee, would 
 have adequate power to carry by a vote the establishment of 
 works by which they were going to get relief. They would 
 vote for works on which they could earn los. a week, and 
 in one week they might earn seven times, ten times, even 
 fourteen times, as much as they would pay in a year for 
 county cess.' With regard to the proposed power to arraign 
 and remove a County Council proved to have been guilty of 
 malversation, corruption, or oppression, it was pointed out 
 that the Local Government Board in England, as well as irr 
 Ireland, had analogous powers of dealing with erring Boards 
 of Guardians, and that the 63rd section of the Education 
 Act of 1870 enacts, 'Where the Education Department are, 
 after such inquiry as they think sufficient, satisfied that a 
 School Board is in default as mentioned in this Act, they 
 may by order declare such Board to be in default, and by 
 the same, or any other order, appoint any persons, not less 
 than five or more than fifteen, to be members . of such 
 School Board, and may from time to time remove any 
 member so appointed. . . . After the date of the order of 
 appointment, the persons (if any) who were previously 
 members of the School Board shall be deemed to have 
 vacated their office as if they were dead. . . . The members 
 appointed by the Education Department shall hold office 
 during the pleasure of the Education Department.' 
 
 On a division, the second reading was carried by 339 
 votes to 247, or a majority of 92. 
 
 3
 
 34 Six Ykars of Unionist Government 
 
 The Irish Education Bill, 1892. 
 
 The National Education (Ireland) liill was introduced 
 by Mr. Jackson, and read a second time on May 30 by 
 152 votes to 53, given to an evasive amendment moved 
 by an anti-Parnellite. It makes attendance at elementary 
 schools compulsory in all boroughs and townships, and 
 gives an annual grant of ;£"2 10,000 towards the relief 
 of fees and for the increase of salaries of school-teachers. 
 The latest returns as to illiteracy and attendance of children 
 at school in Ireland demonstrate the necessity for such a 
 measure. According to the last census return there are 
 78,900 persons in Ireland who could neither read nor write ; 
 the percentage of these in the towns was 9*3, in the counties 
 8*1. While the number of children on the rolls in schools 
 in Ireland is satisfactory, the average percentage of attendance 
 of those, compared with the number on the rolls, is 59 ; 
 while in England it is 79. The significance of these figures 
 is enhanced when it is noted that before compulsory educa- 
 tion in England, the average attendance in Ireland was 
 better than the average attendance in luigland. 
 
 Irish Statistics showing Improvement, 1886-1892. 
 
 I append some facts and statistics to illustrate the present 
 comparative prosp?rity of Ireland in certain specific features : 
 
 The Agricultural returns show that during these last five 
 years the number of horses has increased from 540,000 to 
 566,000; of cattle from 4,077,000 to 4,155,000; of sheep 
 from 3,254,000 to 3,697,000; pigs from 1,290,000 to 
 1,404,000; and poultry from 13,590,000 to 14,615,000. 
 ' During the first five years of the decade,' says Dr. Grim- 
 shaw, the Irish Registrar General, ' there were animals 
 equivalent to 5,162,000 grazed on 10,195,000 acres, or at 
 the rate of one beast for every i'98 acre; during the last 
 half of the decade there were 5,387,000 cattle grazed on 
 10,066,000 acres, or at the rate of one beast for every 
 r87 acre, showing a considerable increase in the density of 
 the stock. Probably,' Dr. Grimshaw goes on to say, ' there 
 is no better proof of the improvement in the management of 
 live stock, and the tendency to increased investment of
 
 Ireland 35 
 
 capital in live stock in Ireland, than this increase in the 
 utilization of the grazing lands.' 
 
 In the Textile industries the number of spinning spindles 
 in Ireland in 1885 was 963,031, and in 1890, 970,019. Of 
 doubling spindles there were 30,875 in 1885, ^g'^iinst 
 46,092 in 1890; and of power-looms 25,472 in 1885, 
 against 28,612 in 1890. The total number of persons 
 employed in these textile industries rose from 68,158 in 
 1885 to 71,788 in 1890. 
 
 In Pauperism the figures showing the average daily number 
 of persons relieved are these : for the quinquennium 
 1881-85, 495552; for the quinquennium 1886-90, 40,633. 
 The expenditure on relief fell from an average of ;^962,ooo 
 in the first period to an average of ;^864,ooo in the second, 
 or a reduction of ^100,000 a year. 
 
 Railivay Statistics. — 'Probably,' says Dr. Grimshaw, 
 ' there are not any better tests of the progress of a com- 
 munity than its railway statistics.' These showed, com- 
 paring the one period with the other, an increase in the 
 mileage from 2,501 to 2,633; in passengers from 18,884,000 
 to 19,709,000; in receipts from ;£" 2, 747, 000 to ^2,877,000. 
 
 Savings Banks.— T\\& average yearly amount of deposits 
 in Trustee and Post Office Saving Banks during the five 
 years of Mr. Gladstone's last Government was ;^ 4, 124,000. 
 The average during Mr. Balfour's five years of administra- 
 tion has been p^5, 231, 000, or a difference in favour of the 
 second period of^^ 1,1 07,000. 
 
 Evictions. — According to the return of evictions furnished 
 to the House of Commons, there were in 1891 799 cases of 
 tenants finally turned out of their holdings. In 1890 the 
 number was 1,421, as contrasted with 3,781 in 1886, and 
 3,869 in 1887. The evictions in London for the two years 
 1889 and 1890 were 6,554, and in 688 cases force was re- 
 quired to give effect to the warrant. 
 
 Eniigratiofi. — During the five years ending in 1885, 
 398,658 left Ireland for other countries. For the five years 
 ending in 1890, the number was 335,817, or a diminution 
 of 16 per cent. For the last five years the actual figures 
 are in 1887, 82,923; in 1888, 78,684; in 1889, 70,477 ; in 
 1890, 61,313; and last year the number sank to 59,868, 
 less than it has been since 1879.
 
 36 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 Results of Unionist Government in Ireland. 
 
 Turning from these specific proofs of an improvement in 
 the material condition of the people, let us sum up the 
 broad results of the Irish policy of the Unionist Govern- 
 ment. Social order has been re-established, and individual 
 liberty restored. Without a compulsory expropriation or 
 expulsion of the landed gentry, a commencement has been 
 made in the creation by their side of a numerous class of 
 small cultivating owners. The material resources of Ireland 
 have been developed by British wealth. A measure forming 
 county and district local authorities, popularly elected, 
 charged with large functions, has been offered to her. Her 
 national education has been popularized and improved. 
 At the same time the principal allegations by which Home 
 Rule was advocated in 1886 have been refuted by facts. 
 It was alleged that under our democratic party system con- 
 tinuous firm government was impossible, and that, therefore, 
 social order could not be maintained in Ireland. But 
 through the alliance between the two sections of the 
 Unionist Party firm government has been maintained for 
 six years, and, in consequence, social order has been re- 
 established. It was asserted that, however well-intentioned 
 might be the Irish legislation of the Imperial Parliament, it 
 would yet alw^ays fail in its objects from our invincible 
 ignorance of Irish needs, and our want of sympathy with 
 Irish ideas. But, in fact, what Act could have succeeded 
 more signally in its specific object than the Coercion Act? 
 What Acts could in practice have worked more smoothly 
 than the Ashbourne Acts? And what legislation and 
 administration combined could be more effective, and even 
 popular, than that by means of which Mr. Balfour grappled 
 with exceptional distress in Ireland, and through which 
 abiding remedies will be applied to some of the permanent 
 causes of her poverty and discontent ? It was alleged that 
 'Ireland blocked the way,' and that the irreconcilable 
 Nationalist members in the House of Commons could and 
 would prevent British legislation. The bare record of 
 British legislation which is set out in the following chapters 
 amply demolishes this allegation.
 
 [ 37 
 
 II. 
 THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 
 
 While it was Mr. Gladstone's sudden conversion to Home 
 Rule which produced the first formal and organized seces- 
 sion from him, and led to the patent disruption of the old 
 Liberal Party, no one who watched carefully the movement 
 of opinion in the English boroughs in 1885 can doubt that 
 his foreign policy had already alienated from him many who 
 had been, and were, sound Liberals in domestic politics, 
 and who were reluctant openly to join the Conservative 
 Party. In fact, while opponents now unite with supporters 
 in lauding the foreign policy of Lord Salisbury, it was diffi- 
 cult then to find a Gladstonian who did not agree with the 
 Conservatives in condemning the foreign policy of Mr. 
 Gladstone. In estimating the full merit and success of the 
 policy which has guided our foreign affairs for the last six 
 years, it is necessary not merely to set out its positive 
 achievements, but also to recollect and to compare with its 
 honourable record of peace the disastrous history of the 
 five years which preceded it. Speaking at West Calder on 
 November 27, 1879, Mr. Gladstone said: 'Pericles, the 
 great Athenian statesman, said, with regard to women, their 
 greatest merit was to be never heard of. Now, what Pericles 
 untruly said of women, I am very much disposed to say 
 of foreign affairs : their greatest merit would be to be never 
 heard of.' Apply this text to the different periods of 1880- 
 1885 ^^'^ of 1886-1892, and what an astonishing contrast 
 is presented ! The former period began with Mr. Gladstone's 
 humiliating letter of apology to the Ambassador of Austria.
 
 38 Six Years of Union tsx Cover nmfnt 
 
 It gave to this country the following expenditure on little 
 wars and expeditions : 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 I880-I. 
 
 Transvaal 
 
 656,000 
 
 I88I-2. 
 1882-3. 
 
 Zulu ... '.'.'. '.'. 
 Egyptian Expedition .. 
 
 . 1,769,000 
 
 135,000 
 
 . 3,895,000 
 
 ,, 
 
 Transvaal 
 
 14,000 
 
 1883-4. 
 1884-5. 
 
 )> 
 
 Egypt 
 
 Nile Expedition 
 Soudan ... 
 Bechuanaland 
 
 381,750 
 
 1,624,000 
 
 964,000 
 
 725,000 
 
 It wound up with the quarrel with Russia and the Vote of 
 Credit for ;£9,45i,coo. Speaking negatively, the second 
 period has been the very antithesis of this. There have 
 not been apologies ; there have not been wars ; there have 
 not been controversies, strained to the very bursting point, 
 with every foreign country. But, on the contrary, and 
 positively, old-standing difficulties have been settled and 
 cleared away. Questions which might have produced 
 friction in the future have been amicably arranged. Friend- 
 ship, and friendship with a powerful influence for the main- 
 tenance of European peace, has been maintained and 
 strengthened with every Great Power. 
 
 The more formal and definite achievements of Lord 
 Salisbury's policy have been these. In Europe, in 1887, a 
 convention was entered into with Cermany and other 
 Powers, for the suppression of the slave trade. In 1889, 
 at the instance of Great Britain, an international confer- 
 ence was held at Berlin on this subject. In 1890 a favour- 
 able commercial treaty was concluded with Greece. 
 
 Egypt. 
 
 In Egypt the progress made has been most remarkable. 
 On November 9, 1885, Lord Salisbury said, at the Guild- 
 hall, that while our occupation of Egypt was temporary, 
 ' the limit was not a limit of time, but of the work we have 
 to do.' Since then Sir E. Baring and his band of able
 
 The Foreign Office 39 
 
 British administrators have effected enormous reforms in 
 every department of Government. The corvee, or forced 
 labour, has been aboHshed. The use of the courbach, or 
 whip, has been almost stopped. A native army of 13,000 
 men has been organized under British officers, and their 
 efficiency shown in their repulse of the dervishes. ' It can 
 be said that the slave trade in Egypt is extinct, and that 
 slavery is moribund.' Administrative corruption has nearly 
 disappeared. In finance, each year since 1887 has shown 
 an increased surplus; in 1890 there was one of ^599,000 ; 
 in 1891, one of ^1,000,000. This result has been achieved 
 concurrently with repeated remissions of taxation, and a 
 liberal expenditure on public works. Since 1886 ;!^i, 800,000 
 has been expended on remunerative irrigation works. It 
 is estimated that if prices remained now as they were in 
 1881, the increase in the value of exports and imports would 
 be nearly ^7,000,000, the bulk of which trade is enjoyed 
 by Great Britain. Improvements are continuously being 
 effected in railways, the post-office, telegraphs, the police, 
 and especially in the criminal courts and the administration 
 of justice. 
 
 In 1887 a convention was made between Great Britain 
 and France, and approved by the other Great Powers, by 
 which the signatories agreed to guarantee the neutralization 
 of the Suez Canal, its freedom as a w^aterway being at all 
 times recognised. 
 
 Africa. 
 
 In Africa, by a series of amicable arrangements with 
 European Powers, a gigantic partition of territory has been 
 effected, and, thanks to the prescience of Lord Salisbury, 
 vast tracts have been secured for the trade and civihzation 
 of our country, while possible causes of future conflict with 
 European Powers have been equitably and quickly removed. 
 The spheres of influence of Great Britain and Portugal 
 were defined by the Anglo-Portuguese Agreement of 1891. 
 I venture to give the following excellent summary of the 
 effect of the other agreements from the ' Campaign Guide ' : 
 
 ''The Anglo-German Agrcen;ent. — In June, 1890, the signature 
 of one of the most important documents ever drafted by states-
 
 40 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 men signalized the greatest of Lord Salisbury's triumphs, and 
 the completion of negotiations which comprehended the whole 
 relations of the two countries in Africa. In securing the prin- 
 cipal points of vantage in a continent, it is of importance to 
 obtain the great waterways — whether by lake or naxigablc river 
 -for the purposes of commerce. In the continent of Africa 
 there arc four great na\igable highways — the Nile, the Niger, 
 the Congo, and the Zambesi. Lord Salisbury has secuied for 
 this country possession of the main streams of three of these 
 great highways, while the fourth — the Congo — has been de- 
 clared neutral and free to the trade of the world, and he has 
 planted our flag on the shores of every one of the great central 
 lakes of Africa. 
 
 ''Central Lakes. — Among the Great Lake States Lord Salisbury 
 has secured for us the empire of Uganda, lying along the coast 
 of Lake \'ictoria, with an estimated population of about 5,000,000 
 and an extent of 70,000 square miles, and the sovereignty over 
 Ruanda, which has a population not fewer than that of Uganda, 
 and occupies a lofty, well-watered plateau, considered highly 
 suited for European colonization. Besides these, we have ob- 
 tained the district of Unyoro, which extends along the shores 
 of the Albert Nyanza and Lake Albert Edward, an immense 
 tract of fertile and well-watered country, having unlimited 
 resources in its immense herds of cattle and in its minerals — 
 the iron forgers of Unyoro and Uganda vying with each other 
 for excellency in workmanship. 
 
 '' East Africa. — In securing for us the paramount sway at the 
 Court of Zanzibar, Lord Salisbury has obtained the goodwill of 
 the foreign trade of that State, which at present amounts to 
 ^2,ooo,oco per annum, and which (since the German Com- 
 pany was formed) had been gradually slipping from our hands 
 into those of our rivals, without our being in a position to check 
 the loss. Zanzibar has for many years been the great gateway 
 for all commerce passing between East Africa, India, and 
 Europe. In addition, we have secured a valuable coast-line 
 of over 400 miles— for the most part under the Sultanate of 
 Zanzibar — where are found some of the best harbours on the 
 whole east coast of Africa. A short distance from the island 
 of Pemba lies the great natural harbour of Mombasa, the 
 chief port of the British East Africa Company, which has a mag- 
 nificent land-locked bay, sufficient, it is said, to hold nearly the 
 whole British navy, and where piers and jetties have already 
 been erected, and beacons and lights set up for the assistance of 
 mariners, such as cannot be found elsewhere on the whole coast. 
 The Indian sappers and miners in the employ of the company 
 have already built a splendid new town, and they are now pro- 
 ceeding with redoubled energy to complete the tramways around
 
 The Forfign Office 41 
 
 the port and the great railway to the Victoria Nyanza,"^ a dis- 
 tance of 400 miles. Already materials for thirty miles of the 
 railway have been laid down, while arrangements for placing 
 steamers on the lakes are completed, and soon the vast resources 
 of the interior will be within a couple of days' journey from the 
 coast, and the trade with the teeming millions inhabiting the 
 fertile regions around the Great Lakes will be in British hands. 
 Meantime, subsidiary roadways are rapidly being formed, con- 
 verging on the line of railway, and numerous trading-stations 
 have been erected throughout the territory ; while the natives 
 have fully recognised their new governors. Sir Richard Temple 
 has stated in Parliament that by the Anglo- German Treaty 
 Lord Salisbury has added a million of square miles of territory 
 to the Queen's dominions, being an addition of one-eighth to the 
 Empire. 
 
 'Wesi Africa. — On the West coast we have secured to us the 
 waterway of the great river of the North, the Niger, which is 
 now under the highly successful administration of the Royal 
 Niger Company. That company has a capital of ^1,000,000 
 fully subscribed, and includes under its control the empires of 
 Sokoto and Gando, which are the largest, the most populous, 
 and most extensive empires in the Western Soudan, having a 
 population of 10,000,000, and almost unlimited resources in 
 their rich agricultural districts, and their valuable cotton, coffee, 
 and cocoa plantations, as well as in the immense product of palm- 
 oil. The trade of the company has increasecl at the rate of 
 nearly ^40,000 within the last two years. Although it is true 
 that the Niger had been recognised by Germany as under our 
 influence by arrangements made by Lord Salisbury previously, 
 it is right to point out that he has now added the adjoinint^ 
 territories, which are administered by British companies (one 
 of which, founded in Liverpool, has a capital of ^'2,000,000, 
 and carries an immense trade in what are known as the Oil 
 Rivers). 
 
 ' Zanibesia. — This vast territory, which is rendered sacred to 
 every Briton by the life and death of Livingstone within its 
 borders, and which, having become valuable by reason of British 
 wealth and energy, was claimed partly by Germany and partly 
 by the Portuguese, has now been finally secured to us. This is 
 the territory to which has been given the name of " Livingstone 
 Land." In the northern section of this district, during the last 
 fifteen years, Scottish traders, banding themselves together 
 under the title of the " African Lakes Company," have built up 
 
 * This is the railway the steps necessary for the construction 
 of which have been so bitterly obstructed in the House of 
 Commons by Radical members.
 
 42 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 a valuable trade around a score of settlements, both along the 
 shores of Lake Nyassa and Tanganika, and in the Shire High- 
 lands. The territory extends to nearly 40,000 square miles, 
 and it is being rapidly developed by means of steamships upon 
 Lakes Nyassa and Tanganika, and by roadways such as the 
 " Stevenson " Road, which have now become the highways of 
 an ever - increasing and valuable trade between the Indian 
 Ocean and the heart of Africa. Further south the territories 
 of Mashonaland and Matabelcland have also been brought 
 definitely under our flag, over 100,000 square miles in extent, 
 and well known to be rich in gold reefs, which have already 
 attracted a large volume of emigration from the more southerly 
 States of the colony. Thanks to the efl"orts of our Prime 
 Minister, the Zambesi waterway will soon be opened as an 
 international highway to carry those valuable exports of gold 
 and other wealth from Mashona and Matabele Lands to the 
 ocean. The agreement secures for us "free trade'' throughout 
 the narrow strip of 120 miles of German territory north of 
 Tanganika (which alone prevents our possessions on the North 
 from joining hands with those of the South). 
 
 ' The Anglo-French Agreement.— h. little later a similar agree- 
 ment, only second in importance, was made with France. 
 France recognised the British protectorate of Zanzibar, and 
 Britain hers of Madagascar, and it was specially agreed that 
 " the missionaries of both countries shall enjoy complete protec- 
 tion and religious toleration, and liberty for all forms of worship 
 shall be guaranteed.'' A line was drawn from Say, on the 
 L^pper Niger, to Barruwa, on Lake Tchad, securing to British 
 influence the whole of the kingdom of Sokoto. South of this 
 all is British, north of it French. It gives to Britain access to 
 Lake Tchad, the great lake of that part of Africa, complete 
 possession of the waterway of the Niger, and the country, which 
 is incomparably the most valuable. 
 
 ' The Anglo- Italian Agreement.— K similar agreement was 
 also made with Italy in 1891 defining the limits of the British 
 and Italian spheres in the north-east of the continent. 
 
 ' This series of treaties is without precedent, and it may be 
 questioned if any single statesman ever did so much to shape 
 the destinies of millions of men as Lord Salisbury has done, 
 without requiring a single vote of credit or sacrificing a single 
 soldier's life. Certainly none has ever surpassed his diplomacy 
 in opening up without loss of life or treasure vast fields for the 
 commerce and enterprise of his fellow-countrymen. As the 
 result of his policy in Africa and elsewhere, upwards of 2,000,000 
 square miles of territory have been brought under the British 
 flag, and a population of nearly 20,000,000 has been brought 
 under British influence, and within the reach of civilization.
 
 India. 43 
 
 We may leave his work in Africa by recording the comment 
 of Mr. Gladstone upon it : "As to the African portion of the 
 question, I think it my duty to give imqualified credit to Lord 
 Salisbury for the spirit in which he has set about this agree- 
 ment. It is a good spirit, having regard to the best interests of 
 England, and is also the spirit of one who did not wish to view 
 those interests in a narrow or selfish manner, but who desired 
 in the discharge of this great colonizing, protecting, or superin- 
 tending function, that the benefits should extend ungrudgingly 
 to all countries in the world." ' 
 
 III. 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 A Joint Commission has delimited the Afghan frontier. 
 The limits of Russian advance between the Oxus and the 
 Persian frontier have been definitely laid down. Friendly 
 relations have been maintained with Afghanistan. Burmah 
 has been pacified. In 1887 a treaty was made with China, 
 to define the relations that should subsist between that 
 country and Burmah. The territory of Suakim has been 
 protected from Tibetan aggression. A British protectorate 
 has been established over North Borneo and Sarawak, over 
 an area of seventy square miles. To secure the north-west 
 frontier of India, during the last five years ^10,000,000 has 
 been expended on strategic railways, and ^5,000,000 on 
 fortifications and military roads. In a very different depart- 
 ment of affairs, by the India Councils Act of this year, larger 
 powers are given to the several councils, and the possible 
 appHcation of the representative principle in them under 
 safeguards is admitted.
 
 [ 44 
 
 IV. 
 THE COLONIES. 
 
 What has been written with respect to our Foreign Policy 
 may be repeated with regard to the conduct of colonial 
 affairs during the last six years. It has been the opposite 
 to that of the previous six years. In Africa and Australasia 
 alike there had been confusion, uncertainty, and irritation. 
 Mr. Labouchere, in Truth of March 26, 1891, wrote : 'What, 
 I want to know, is England the better for her colonies ? — 
 Not a single brass farthing !' It is in precisely the reverse 
 spirit to this that, since 1886, colonial sentiment has been 
 consulted, and colonial interests, as far as possible, pre- 
 served. The first colonial conference was held in 1887. 
 
 On April 4 of that year delegates from all the self- 
 governing colonies met at the Foreign Office, under the 
 presidency of Sir H. Holland. 
 
 At the sitting of May 6, the Home Government undertook 
 to provide five fast cruisers and two torpedo gunboats for 
 the exclusive use of the Australasian colonies, while they 
 agreed in return to pay ^91,000 a year for their maintenance 
 and 5 per cent, on the initial cost of the vessels. Arrange- 
 ments were made for the transfer of English officers for 
 service with the colonial forces. 
 
 The Colonial Probates Bill^ 1892, may be referred to as 
 a small but suggestive outcome of the desire expressed at the 
 colonial conference. Several of the Australasian colonies 
 had passed Acts providing that where competent Courts in 
 this country had granted probate or letters of administration 
 for deceased persons having property in the colonies, they
 
 The Colonies 45 
 
 were to have the same effect as if granted there. That Bill 
 proposed, by reciprocal legislation, to enact that the Queen, 
 on being satisfied that the Legislature of any British posses- 
 sion had made adequate provision for the recognition of 
 probates and letters of administration granted by the Courts 
 of the United Kingdom, might direct that this Act should 
 apply, so that probate and letters of administration granted 
 to the colony for persons having property in this country 
 shall be recognised here. 
 
 Australasia. 
 
 In the New Hebrides, in October, 1887, a convention 
 was concluded with France, by which the withdrawal of 
 French troops was amicably effected. 
 
 In New Guinea, in September, 1888, British sovereignty 
 was formally proclaimed over 97,000 square miles of the 
 island. 
 
 In Samoa, German interference had led to civil war. A 
 conference was held in 1889 between Great Britain, Germany, 
 and the United States, with the result that the independence 
 of the islands, and the neutrality of the three Powers, was 
 declared, and a pledge given of abstention from future inter- 
 ference with their affairs. 
 
 In 1890 legislation was passed giving constitutional 
 government to Western Australia. 
 
 South Africa. 
 
 Zululand. — The troubles in this country have been over- 
 come by a judicious arrangement with the Boers in Decem- 
 ber, 1886; and the proclamation of British sovereignty, at 
 the desire of the Zulus themselves, over Eastern Zululand 
 in February, 1887. 
 
 Swaziland. — The difficulties which arose from the same 
 causes further north have also been dealt with by a con- 
 vention with the Transvaal in 1890, by which the inde- 
 pendence of the Swazis is guaranteed. 
 
 Amatongalatid. — British protection has also been extended 
 to this country, lying between Zululand and the Portuguese 
 possessions in the East,
 
 46 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 Bechua/ialand, Matabek^ and Masliona-land. — The erec- 
 tion of part of Bechuanaland into a Crown colony in 1885, 
 and the extension of British influence over Matabele and 
 Mashona-land, have been followed by the incorporation of 
 the British South African Company. 
 
 Zanzibar. — Under British influence slavery has been 
 abolished at Zanzibar in 1891, important concessions secured 
 for the British East African Company, and Zanzibar declared 
 a free port by the Sultan in 1891. 
 
 The Ni^er Districts. — A protectorate was formally pro- 
 claimed over these districts in October, 1887, including the 
 country subject to the Royal Niger Company. 
 
 North America. 
 
 Canadian Fisheries. — The conflicting interests of Canadian 
 and United States subjects in the fisheries on the east 
 coast of America have always been a fruitful subject of 
 difficulty. In 1888 these disputes were referred to a Com- 
 mission, and a modus vivendi arrived at, the duration of 
 which was subsequently prolonged. 
 
 Behring's Sea Seal Fishings. — A problem of equal difficulty 
 existed on the west coast of America in the question as to 
 the rights of fishing for seals in Behring's Sea. After a long 
 correspondence an agreement was arrived at in 1891 pro- 
 viding for the reference of the differences to arbitration. 
 Pending the arbitration, a modus vivendi for the year 1891 
 was agreed to on terms distinctly favourable to the United 
 States. Delays occurred in the ratification by their Senate 
 of the treaty, and in 1892 they demanded a continuance of 
 the modus vivendi., which, if further prolonged on the same 
 terms, would have prejudiced the rights of Canadian sealers. 
 For a short time there was some tension, but the courtesy 
 and judgment of Lord Salisbury has led to an agreement by 
 which either nationality gives security for damages from its 
 action pending the decision of the arbiters, should it be 
 found to be wrong. The treaty has now been uncondi- 
 tionally ratified by the American Senate. 
 
 The Neivfoundland Fisheries. — Similar complications 
 existed in reference to the rights of France and of our 
 colonists in Newfoundland in the fishintis on what is known
 
 The Colonies 47 
 
 as the French sho-e on that island. Certain rights had been 
 recognised as belonging to French fishermen from the time 
 of the Treaty of Utrecht, and the relations of the colonial 
 and French fishermen were a constant subject of friction. 
 An agreement was arrived at with the French Government 
 providing for a temporary arrangement, and a future settle- 
 ment by arbitration. On February 9, 1892, Lord Salisbury 
 made this statement : ' If her Majesty's Government "had 
 been let alone we should have procured a settlement. Our 
 efforts had the very fairest promise of success. But un- 
 fortunately a Bill was necessary. When it got into the other 
 House the observations that were made by gentlemen who 
 believed and announced themselves to be on the point of 
 coming into office at an early day were such as to entirely 
 destroy in the French Government any hope that they would 
 obtain the execution of the decree of the arbitrators who 
 might be appointed. The result is that since that speech 
 was delivered we have not moved an inch.' 
 
 Imperial Defence Act. 
 
 By the Imperial Defence Act of 1888, which was carried 
 at the resolutions of the colonial conference, provision was 
 made, at the joint expense of the colonies and Great 
 Britain, for the establishment of an Australian squadron of 
 five crusiers and two torpedo-boats. Under this Act, too, 
 it was provided that for an imperial defence throughout the 
 world there should be expended on 
 
 Coaling-stations - - - ^360,000 
 
 Barracks at those stations - - 350,000 
 
 Heavy guns - - - - 100,000 
 
 Colonial ports - - - 441,000
 
 [48 1 
 
 V. 
 
 THE TREASURY. 
 
 In 1887 Mr, Goschen in his first Budget (April 21) found 
 himself in possession of an accrued surplus of ;£^975,ooo. 
 By an increase in the stamp duty on transfers of certain 
 stock, and by a readjustment of the debt charges, he added 
 ;£"i 00,000, and ^1,700,000 to this, and produced an available 
 surplus of ^2,779,000. With this he reduced the income- 
 tax by id., from 8d. to 7d. in the £,^ and gave farmers the 
 option of paying income-tax on their profits, instead of on 
 their rents. This disposed of ^1,560,000. He reduced 
 the tobacco duty from 3s. 6d. to 3s. 2d. per lb., and 
 thereby disposed of ^600,000. Then he gave ^280,000 
 in aid of local taxation in England and Scotland, and 
 ;£"5o,ooo in aid of arterial drainage, and of certain industries 
 in Ireland. So that ;^2,49o,ooo was expended in relief, 
 and ^289,000 carried forward. 
 
 Budget of 1888. 
 
 In 1888 the chief drain upon an accrued surplus of 
 ;^2, 165,000 was found in the new scheme of Local Govern- 
 ment finance, introduced contemporaneously with the Local 
 Government Bill for England and Wales. Under this 
 scheme the local authorities surrendered ;2{J"2, 600,000, which 
 was the total amount of various grants in aid, which they 
 had previously received from the Imperial Exchequer, and 
 which were scattered through the Civil Service Estimates. 
 On the other hand, they would in future receive ;£"3, 000,000 
 from the transfer into their hands of existing licences,
 
 The Treasury 49 
 
 ;^8oo,ooo from new licences, and ;£" 1,704,000 from the 
 transfer to them of half the probate duty. They would 
 thus receive a total sum of ;£"5, 504,000, and therefore have 
 under the new scheme a net gain of ^2,900,000. In this 
 his second Budget (introduced on March 26), Mr. Goschen 
 increased certain stamp duties, and imposed a tax on 
 bottled wines of 5s. per dozen, which was intended to affect 
 the tiner class of sparkling wines only. With the proceeds 
 of these new taxes, and with his actual surplus, he was able 
 to give the large new relief to total ratepayers, which has 
 just been stated, and also to talce off another id. from the 
 income-tax, and so further to reduce it from yd. to 6d. in 
 tlie £. 
 
 In 1888 the conversion of the National Debt was suc- 
 cessfully accomplished. The interest on ' New Threes,' 
 ' Reduced,' and ' Consols ' was reduced to 2| per cent, for 
 fifteen years, and then to 2J per cent. ^1,400,000 a year 
 was thereby saved to the country from April, 1889, and 
 ;^2, 800,000 a year from April, 1903. 
 
 Budget of 1889. 
 
 In 1889 the Budget was introduced on April 15. While 
 there was an accrued surplus of ^2,800,000, the increased 
 expenditure in the Army and Navy Estimates, and that prc^ 
 posed for imperial defence, more than swallowed this sum 
 up ; and to meet these national requirements an increased 
 tax of I per cent, was imposed upon the succession to all 
 estates which amounted to ^10,000 or more, whether of realty 
 or personalty ; and an increased duty of jjth of id. was put 
 on the gallon of beer. The increase in the succession duty 
 was calculated to produce ^800,000; the increase on the 
 beer duty to produce ^^350,000. It will be convenient to 
 state the details of the naval and military expenditure under 
 their respective headings. 
 
 Budget of 1890. 
 
 In 1890 there was an accrued surplus of ^3,549,000, and 
 by his fourth Budget (April 17) Mr. Goschen was able to 
 reduce the tea duty by 2d. per lb., viz., from 6d. to 4d. per 
 lb., which represented a diminution of taxation of the sum 
 
 4
 
 50 wSix Years of Unionist Government 
 
 of ;£i, 500,000 ; to reduce the duty on currants from 7s. to 
 2S. per cwt., which represented a loss of revenue of about 
 ^,^2 1 0,000 : and in the case of houses assessed at from £^20 
 to ^40 a year, to reduce the inhabited house duty to 2d. 
 and 4d. ; and, in the case of houses assessed at l)etween 
 ^40 and ;£'6o, to reduce it to 4d. and 6d. This reduction 
 in the inhabited house duty represented ^550,000, and it 
 was calculated that 800,000 persons received rehef from it. 
 Further, the sum of ^£300,000 was appropriated to im- 
 proved barrack accommodation, ;^ 100, 000 to a more com- 
 plete equipment of the volunteers, and ;£"8o,ooo in the 
 reduction to 2jd. of the ocean postage between this country 
 and India and the colonies. In addition, the stamp duty 
 payable on health policies was placed on the same basis as 
 that on life policies, and the stamps on agreements of 
 apprenticeship, which had been 5s. for every j[^^ of 
 premium, was reduced to the uniform sum of 2s, 6d. 
 
 Then, by the transfer of the duty on the barrel of beer 
 from the imperial to the local exchequers, and by the im- 
 position of an additional duty of 6d. per gallon on spirits, a 
 fund of ;2^ 1, 300, 000 was raised, to be used by the local 
 authorities for the following objects : ;£" 150,000 was allocated 
 to the Metropolitan Police Superannuation Fund, ;^i 50,000 
 to the superannuation funds of the County Police, 
 ;£^393jOoo to the County Councils. A remaining sum of 
 ;^ 3 5 0,000, which had originally been intended to be given 
 to the local authorities for the purchase of the licences of 
 public-houses, was handed over to them to be applied pri- 
 marily for the advancement of technical education. 
 
 Budget of 1891. 
 
 In 1891 the Budget speech was made on April 23. 
 There was an accrued surplus of ;£" 1,756,000. But it was 
 necessary to meet some unexpected and supplementary 
 items of expenditure. ;z{^2oo,ooo was required for the relief 
 works in Ireland, and ;£"2oo,ooo for the Post Office, of 
 which ^150,000 was absorbed in increases of wages 
 amongst several branches of its servants. Moreover, as the 
 requirements of the local authorities, and of the Army and 
 Navy, had in previous years diverted from reductions of 
 taxation the available surpluses, so now the determination
 
 The Treasury 51 
 
 of the Government to give assisted education to the 
 country precluded any remissions of taxation. The sum of 
 ^^960,000 was set aside for assisted education, ;2£^5oo,ooo 
 for further barrack construction, and ^400,000 for the 
 withdrawal from circulation of light gold coin. 
 
 Budget of 1892. 
 
 In 1892, in his sixth Budget, introduced on April 11, Mr. 
 Goschen, after allowing ^2,500,000 for assisted education, 
 had a margin of 7^2 24,000, to deal with. By a re-arrange- 
 ment of the duties on sparkling wines, ;^2oo,ooo might be 
 required. The remaining ^24,000 was used for the re- 
 duction of the fees charged on the renewal of patents, ' in 
 the interests of the poorer patentees, and with the view of 
 giving the fullest scope to the development of inventions.' 
 
 It is important to note the magnitude of the contributions 
 now given to the local authorities. They amount for this 
 financial year in all to ^7,638,000 ; />., from probate duty, 
 ^2,808,000; from the beer and spirit duties, ;if 1,400,000 ; 
 from licences, ;£^3, 390,000; a special contribution to 
 Ireland, ^'40,000. 
 
 Summary. 
 
 Let us sum up the results of these six years of Unionist 
 finance. By definite remissions of taxation, every class has 
 been benefited. The reduction of 2d. on the income-tajt 
 has brought reHef to the wealthier and to the middle class ; 
 the reductions on the tea, tobacco, and currant duties have 
 been felt by all consumers, but must necessarily be of 
 most value in the case of the poorest consumers. The 
 alteration in the inhabited house duty was intended to 
 help particularly the poorer middle-class and the highest 
 grades of artisans. But it is not merely by reductions in 
 taxation, it is also by an increase of expenditure in many 
 directions, that the community has derived benefit from 
 these six years of finance. And no one who has thought of 
 the limited subject-matter on which our taxation now falls, 
 or of the difficulty of discovering new subjects on which it 
 shall fall, will question the wisdom of not unnecessarily still 
 further contracting the margins of its incidence.
 
 52 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 The increase of expenditure has been principally on three 
 main objects : 
 
 (i) On the improvement of the national defences, and 
 of the efficiency of the Army and the Navy. 
 
 (2) On education. 
 
 (3) On relief of local taxation. 
 
 These large positive reductions in taxation, and these 
 incontestably beneficial increases in expenditure, have in- 
 volved new or higher taxation merely on — 
 
 (i) Death and succession duty on estates of 
 
 (2) Transfer of securities, and issue of limited com- 
 
 panies producing ^^i 20,000 a year. 
 
 (3) Sparkling wines and spirits. 
 
 It may be confidently asserted, therefore, that no wage- 
 earning man has had in these six years one farthing taken 
 from him by new taxation, or by an increase in the price of 
 commodities, to set against what he has gained by the re- 
 ductions in taxation and by the increases in expenditure. 
 
 The National Debt. 
 
 What has actually been done towards the reduction of the 
 National Debt since 1886, as compared with what was 
 effected in the six preceding years, is this : 'From 1881-82 
 to 1885-86 the reduction of liabilities was ^28,400,000, 
 while in the six years from 1886-87 to 1891-92 the re- 
 duction is ^38,823,000, showing a difference of ^10,423,000 
 to the advantage of the present Government ' (Mr. Goschen 
 in the House of Commons, May 16, 1892). 
 
 In this context this fact may be noted : Lord Beaconsfield 
 in 1875 bought 176,000 shares in the Suez Canal for 
 ^£4,07 6,000. They have paid ^^200,000 in interest up to 
 date. In 1894 their capital value will be ^19,000,000, 
 bearing interest, at the present rate, of ;^62 5,ooo a year. 
 It will then be possible to apply ;£" 15,000,000, the en- 
 hanced capital value of this investment, w^hich Mr. Glad- 
 stone called in a speech made at Glasgow on December 5, 
 1879, 'a financial operation of a ridiculous description,' to 
 the reduction of the National Debt.
 
 [ 53 ] 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE WAR OFFICE. 
 
 Although the administration of the War Office has not re- 
 ceived such unquaHfied approval as Lord George Hamilton's 
 at the Admiralty, and although it must be admitted that 
 much remains to be done before our Army is placed in a 
 really satisfactory state, Mr. Stanhope has been a vigorous 
 and reforming administrator, and has been able to materially 
 improve the efficiency of every branch of that service. The 
 following table shows the average effective strength of the 
 Army during the several years of Mr. Gladstone's last and 
 Lord Salisbury's present Government : 
 
 Mr. 
 
 Gladstone. 
 
 Lord 
 
 Salisbury. 
 
 1880. 
 1881. 
 
 191,804. 
 
 188,958. 
 
 1887.. 
 1888.. 
 
 ....208,357. 
 
 ....2II,02J. 
 
 1882. 
 1883. 
 1884. 
 1885. 
 
 189,133. 
 
 193.397. 
 
 184,227. 
 
 188,657. 
 
 1889.. 
 1890.. 
 1891.. 
 
 ....211,030. 
 ....210,213. 
 ....210,499. 
 
 Mr. Stanhope, speaking in the House of Commons on 
 March 7, 1892, said : ' Since 1886 the Reserve has increased 
 by 24,000. Our military strength of regulars and reserves 
 available for service at home and abroad, as compared with 
 what it was ten years ago, shows an increase of no less than 
 66,000 men.' 
 
 By the National Defence Act, 1888, powers of user have 
 been obtained over railway lines in the event of invasion.
 
 54 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 and for the acquisition of carriages, animals, or vessels at 
 such a time. It is impossible here to set out in detail the 
 particular military reforms which have been carried out by 
 this Government. But it must be remembered that by the 
 Barrack Act, ^4,100,000 is to be expended on improved 
 barrack accommodation, and that amongst the most im- 
 portant of their reforms are those which are intended to 
 give greater comfort and health to the life of the private 
 soldier. The following extract from the report of the 
 Inspector-Cieneral of Recruiting, dated February 18, 1892, 
 shows that these changes have not been unproductive of 
 good : 
 
 'It has been stated that the Army is recruited from "the 
 dregs of the population '" and the " riff-raff" of the towns. These 
 statements are not borne out by facts. Were they true, it would 
 be impossible that the returns of each year should show, as they 
 do, a steady decrease in crime of all sorts, and an almost entire 
 absence of those crimes which are most rife amongst the 
 "dregs" and " riff-raff" from which the soldiers are said to be 
 recruited. Such crimes as theft and violent assaults are now 
 almost unknown in the Army ; whilst drunkenness is veiy much 
 less frequent than it was even five years ago. During 1890 the 
 number of courts-martial was 10,673 ; the number of minor 
 punishments inflicted, 212,150 ; number of men fined for 
 drunkenness, 17,000; number of men in possession of good- 
 conduct badge, 90,160. For 1885 the figures were : Courts- 
 martial, 14,280 ; minor punishments, 284,008 ; drunkenness, 
 23,324 ; good-conduct badges, 72,345. This diminution in crime 
 is attributable to a great extent {i) To the great iJtcrease m the 
 comfort and the healthy amusements to the soldier ivithin the 
 firechicts of his barracks^ and the endeavour to make it his 
 home ; (2) To the improvcme7it, especially in the last three 
 years ^ in the quality and variety of the food p7'0vided for the 
 soldier^ who is therefore less tempted to indulge in intoxicating 
 liquors whilst in search of food outside his barracks ; (3) to the 
 influence of education, which has enabled many more soldiers 
 than heretofore to derive amusement from the books and news- 
 papers at their disposal in the regimental or garrison libraries 
 and recreation rooms.' 
 
 Many encouragements have been given to the Volunteers, 
 the most material of them being the increase in the capita- 
 tion grant from 30s. to 35s., and the additional allowance 
 of i2s. for the acquisition of great-coats.
 
 [55 ] 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE ADMIRALTY. 
 
 Closely connected with the last topic is the subject of the 
 Navy. And the pohcy and programme of the Government 
 with respect to the Navy centres in the Naval Defence Act, 
 which came on for second reading in the House of Commons 
 on May 6, 1889. Substantially this carried out the terms 
 of the resolution which Lord George Hamilton had moved 
 on March 7, that ' It is expedient that a sum not exceeding 
 ^21,500,000 be granted for the purpose of building, 
 arming and equipping, and completing for sea, vessels for 
 her Majesty's Navy, and that it is expedient that a sum not 
 exceeding ^10,000,000 be issued out of the Consolidated 
 Fund in seven years ending March 31, 1896; and that a 
 sum not exceeding ;^i 1,500,000 be issued out of the 
 moneys to be provided by Parliament for the naval service 
 for the five financial years ending March 31, 1894.' 
 
 The essence of this proposal, and of the Bill, was that one 
 comprehensive view shall be taken of the requirements of 
 the Navy, and that those requirements shall be met by one 
 complete and coherent scheme, and not left to the chances 
 of political events, and the capricious impulses of popular 
 01 party sentiment. The Navy, like the Army, had suffered 
 much in the past from such vicissitudes. At one time it 
 had been stinted ; at another, in some moment of national 
 panic, vast sums had been spent extravagantly, short- 
 sightedly, in the vain attempt suddenly to repair the effects 
 of previous parsimony. Now it was resolved that the 
 country shall be bound by expenditure spread over several
 
 56 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 years to complete a carefully considered programme of naval 
 construction. How in the following years this prudent 
 resolve has actually been carried out will be best explained 
 by the si)eeches of Mr. Forwood, and the statement issued 
 in 1892 by Lord George Hamilton. 
 
 *At Blackpool on January 23, 1890, Mr. Forwood, M.P. 
 (Secretary to the Admiralty), said he would give a short sketch 
 of what had been done by the Admiralty in three and a half 
 years since they took charge of the naval administration. 
 Between 1880 and 1885 the Navy was allowed to run down, and 
 honour and glory were earned by Chancellors of the Exchequer 
 for economy of the worst description. In 1885 the Press called 
 the attention of the nation to this neglect, and at the close of 
 that year a spasmodic effort was made to strengthen the fleet, so 
 that, whilst during the five years ending 1885 only ;/^9,ooo,ooo 
 had been expended on new ships, the sum so expended in the 
 five years ending March, 1890, would have been ^15,500,000, 
 and by March, 1894, ^16,100,000 would have been provided for 
 the same purpose. Those figures were, however, very far from 
 conveying the great increase that had taken place and was being 
 made in the effective fighting strength of the Navy. In years 
 gone by numbers of ships in a partly finished state accumulated 
 in our dockyards, money being devoted more to laying down 
 new vessels than finishing those in hand. When, in 1886, the 
 present Board came into office the amount of capital expended in 
 incomplete ships, and therefore lying dormant so far as effective 
 worth was concerned, was ^8, 500,000. This sum they had reduced 
 in 1889 to ^{^4,400,000, and in March next it would only amount 
 to a little over one and a half millions, excluding ships laid down 
 under the Defence Act of last Session. (Cheers.) The ships 
 completed between 1886 and 1891 would include 21 ironclads, 
 21 protected cruisers, and 56 smaller vessels. To this powerful 
 fleet they would by 1894 add further 8 first-class battleships, 
 2 second-class battleships, 9 protected cruisers, first-class ; t,^ 
 protected cruisers, second-class, and 18 other war vessels, 70 in 
 all, or a total of 161 vessels. By the wise provisions of the 
 Naval Defence Act that programme must be carried, and was 
 beyond the reach of any change of policy resulting from a change 
 of Government. Ten of our older ironclads were being 
 modernized in either engines or armaments, or both, and so 
 being made useful fighting vessels Another advance in our 
 defensive strength was the substitution of old but useful fighting- 
 steamships for the obsolete hulks which acted as guardships at 
 the dockyards, Portsmouth. The armour-clads completed 
 between 1875 ^'"id 1885 averaged in displacement 7,390 tons and 
 5,650 of indicated horse-power each, the largest being 10,800
 
 The Admiralty 57 
 
 tons and 8,000 indicated horse-power, against an average of 
 9,800 tons and 10,780 horse-power of vessels completed or to be 
 completed between 1885 ^^d 1894, the largest being over 14,000 
 tons Avith 12,000 indicated horse-power. The increase in the 
 size of protected cruisers was more conspicuous, for whilst their 
 tonnage averaged 2,000 tons each in the first period and 2,006 
 horse-power, in the present decade they would average 3,894 
 tons and 8,300 indicated horse-power. Moreover, no loss of 
 time would in future attend the supply of coal. Instead of our 
 spare vessels being left unused in our dockyards from one year's 
 end to another, and our officers kept on half-pay, every available 
 ship had been commissioned for a short cruise during the naval 
 manoeuvres. A satisfactory feature was that the coal bill of the 
 Navy had increased from 248,000 tons in 1886 to 358,000 tons in 
 1889, thus showing the increased mobility of our fleet. They 
 had added to their available supply of reserve men and officers 
 from the mercantile navy, and they had secured the call of a 
 number of the largest and fastest merchant vessels for armed 
 cruisers. With the increase in the fleet they had had to extend 
 the numbers of their men from 61,000 to 65,000. As to the all- 
 important question of guns for our ships, a great advance had 
 been made in the productive power of the country within the 
 last three years by the encouragement given to private makers, 
 and by the improvements and extensions at Woolwich ; so that, 
 although there was at present an abnormally large demand both 
 for land and sea service, yet he fully believed that the guns for 
 our new ships would be ready quite as soon as the vessels were 
 ready to receive them. The retention of Woolwich as a gun- 
 making establishment was most valuable as a check upon prices 
 charged by private makers. The public had been recently in- 
 formed by the Press that the Victoria was to proceed to sea 
 without trying the strengthened loo-ton gun which had been 
 returned to her from Elswick. It was also stated that it would 
 be dangerous to fire the Be?ibow's guns with full charges. As 
 those remarks had been widely circulated, he took that oppor- 
 tunity of giving them a distinct contradiction. (Cheers.) In 
 view of the successful trials of the Italian loo-ton guns, it was 
 decided to adopt that type for a few of our ships. One of those 
 had been successfully tried. He described the progress that had 
 been made since 1886 in the provision of reserves of guns and 
 munitions of war, and said that the store of munition had 
 increased even at a greater ratio than the guns. (Cheers.) 
 While they had thus been expending larger sums, they had been 
 by improved administration obtaining a better value for the out- 
 lay, and he felt sure the country would not grudge the money if 
 satisfied on this head. (Cheers.) In conclusion he said that 
 although much had been done to improve their organization, yet
 
 58 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 much more remained to be clone. The extra efforts they had to 
 make had arisen from a starvation of the Navy in the past.' 
 
 ' Speaking^ on January 12, 1892, at a dinner of the Royal 
 Na\al Reserve, at the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, Mr. A. B. For- 
 wood, M.P., Secretary to the Admiralty, said he would devote 
 his remarks to the nation's naval reserves, as most fitting for the 
 occasion. The strength of a nation lay in its reserve of power, 
 and the value of that force depended largely upon its mobility. 
 To give some idea of the position and progress of the country in 
 relation to its naval reserve, he must adopt some comparisons, 
 and if he compared the present time with six years ago, he 
 assured them that it was for no political or party purpose. The 
 great anxiety of the First Lord of the Admiralty and his Board 
 had been, concurrently with an increase of ships, to strengthen 
 our position as regarded preparedness for emergencies. Before 
 referring to the personnel of the fleet, which they so worthily 
 represented, he would say a word as to 
 
 THE RESERVE OF SHIPS 
 
 and their equipment. In addition to the new vessels, of which 
 they had heard much, and the ordinary fleet maintenance, they 
 had renovated, or had in hand, most of the old armoured vessels. 
 Formerly the stationary, or depot hulks, at the naval ports were 
 obsolete hulks, which served merely the purpose of naval 
 barracks. These non-seagoing vessels had been replaced at 
 Sheerness, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Queenstown, and Pembroke, 
 by such fighting vessels as the Nort/iauipton^ Nelson, Suiiftsure^ 
 and Tr-iumph, which formed a considerable accession to the 
 reserves ready for immediate service. An equally satisfactory 
 change had recently been made with regard to the ships in 
 reserve at the dockyards. These were now all placed con- 
 veniently together in the basins at the dockyards, ready coaled, 
 with armament on board, stores set apart, and skeleton crews 
 told off to keep them in order. A similar policy of preparedness 
 had been pursued with reference to obtaining on the shortest 
 notice the very large extra quantity of 
 
 COALS and SEA STORES 
 
 that on the outbreak of war would be required. He thought 
 that this was a better system than holding very heavy stocks of 
 stores of a perishing character. A review of the reserve-ship 
 question would not be complete without mentioning the new 
 force of mercantile armed cruisers — a force the value of which 
 it would be difficult to over-estimate. For the practical initiation 
 of that scheme the credit was due to their good friend, Mr.
 
 The Admiralty 59 
 
 Ismay. They now retained on payment thirteen merchant 
 steamers of an aggregate gross tonnage of 100,000 tons and 
 150,000 indicated horse-power. Such a tonnage built for the 
 Navy would cost over ^^6,000,000 ; and, as they only paid 
 ;^6o,ooo per annum to secure the call for their services, it was 
 a good financial transaction for the country. This payment 
 gave them also the call, free of charge, of fifteen other large 
 and fine steamers. He might also mention that seventeen of 
 these steamers were commanded by officers of the Naval 
 Reserve. Moreover, the mercantile armed auxiliaries were 
 excellent vedettes, or watchdogs of a fleet, and to those who 
 said that they would be better employed as food-carriers, he 
 replied that very high speed and large cargo capacity was not a 
 practicable combination. The 
 
 PERSONNEL OF THE NAVY 
 
 had been recently considered by a thoroughly practical com- 
 mittee, presided over by Sir George Tryon, and on which Mr. 
 Ismay sat as a representative shipowner. This committee 
 spoke highly of the morale and good character of the force known 
 as the Royal Naval Reserve, which must be gratifying to his 
 audience. At one time there was a reluctance on the part of 
 naval officers to associate the Navy too closely with the mercan- 
 tile marine. That feeling was wearing away, and had almost 
 disappeared, due largely, he believed, to the better stamp of 
 men as regarded education and status who now entered the 
 merchant service, and he hoped to see the bonds of union drawn 
 still closer together. To estimate aright the importance of the 
 Royal Naval Reserve to the Navy, he urged that its bearing as 
 regarded the 
 
 NUMBERS 
 
 borne in the regular service must be considered. In 1886 the 
 number of all ranks in the Navy was 61,500 ; to day the figures 
 were 71,000, and would probably very shortly reach 74,000. Of 
 the 71,000, 47,000, including 13,000 marines, were available for 
 service afloat. The total of the Royal Naval Reserve in 1886 
 was 17,700 ; to-day its authorized number was 20,700. But as 
 a matter of fact recruiting is, was, and had been so rapid that 
 the total enrolled exceeded that number, and it represented 
 approximately 40 per cent, of the continuous service available 
 seagoing seamen class. The importance to the country of the 
 Naval Reserve could not be exaggerated, and its value must 
 increase. Although the number of warships would and must 
 grow larger, the number of the regular force would not reason- 
 ably grow in an equal ratio. There was another advantage in
 
 6o Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 the reserve. The 10,000 second-class, or fishermen, were always 
 at hand, and of the r 0,000 men of the first-class, or seamen, no 
 less than 7,000 were immediately available, they being engaged 
 on short and home voyages, only 175 having leave for long 
 voyages. Estimates had been made of the further possible 
 increase of the service, and without undue pressure it was 
 thought that 10,000 men in the two classes could be obtained, 
 which would raise the total strength to 30,000 men out of the 
 80,000 British seamen and 70,000 fishermen which formed their 
 source of supply. In fifteen years the merchant tonnage had 
 gone up one and three-quarter millions, but the number of 
 British seamen had diminished by 20,000, whereas the foreigners 
 in our ships had increased by 6,000. With regard to firemen and 
 stokers, the number of them in the reserve did not increase, and 
 although no drill was required, an annual bounty was paid. The 
 mercantile firemen as a class were not very orderly or amenable 
 to discipline, and probably it would be found advisable to alter 
 the present arrangement by enrolling and drilling those who 
 joined the reserve similarly to the seamen class. In his opinion 
 there need be no anxiety as to finding men to stoke, as there 
 were so many employments in the country where a knowledge 
 of firing was acquired. Satisfactory, however, as was the 
 extension of the reserve of men, that of officers showed a still 
 greater improvement. The numbers on the active list had 
 increased from 220 in 1886 to 758 in 1891, and of these 86 had 
 served, or were serving, their twelve months as officers in men- 
 of-war, 39 being then afloat. To-day the number was still 
 larger.' — Times ^ January 13. 
 
 ' On March 8, 1892, the First Lord of the Admiralty issued a 
 statement explanatory of the Naval Estimates, from which the 
 following figures are taken : 
 Ordnance: 1886. 1892. 
 
 B.L. guns (afloat and in reserve) 499 1,868 
 
 Light quick-firing guns (afloat and in 
 reserve) 33 1,715 
 
 Torpedoes (afloat and in reserve) ... ... 820 2 874 
 
 Ships (fighting) : 
 In commission — 
 At home— excluding coast defence ships, 
 gun-boats, and torpedo-boats 
 Displacement tonnage 
 Abroad — total of all classes 
 Displacement tonnage 
 Complements — abroad 
 
 15 
 
 21 
 
 110,000 
 
 154,500 
 
 96 
 
 no 
 
 205,800 
 
 300,007 
 
 18,100 
 
 :^3o5o
 
 Home Office 6i 
 
 In reserve (ready for commission)— 
 
 1886. 
 
 1B92. 
 
 Excluding coast defence ships, gun- 
 
 
 
 boats, and torpedo-boats- 
 
 
 
 Fleet reserve- 
 
 
 
 Division A 
 
 — 
 
 6 
 
 Division B 
 
 — 
 
 II 
 
 Old First-class Steam Reserve 
 
 10 
 
 •-> 
 
 Displacement tonnage 
 
 25,700 
 
 82,200 
 
 Ships of 1 5 knots speed and upwards (afloat 
 
 
 
 and building), all classes except torpedo- 
 
 
 
 boats 
 
 57 
 
 140 
 
 Personnel : 
 
 
 
 Establishments of officers and men (Active 
 
 
 
 List) 
 
 61,400 
 
 74,100 
 
 Numbers of Royal Naval Reserve (officers 
 
 
 
 and men) 
 
 18,300 
 
 23,500 
 
 VIII. 
 
 HOME OFFICE. 
 
 The most important Acts that have proceeded from the 
 Home Office are the following : 
 
 In 1887 the Coal-mines Regulation Act was passed, which 
 consolidated the pre-existing mining law, and in addition 
 contained many new provisions. It prohibited the employ- 
 ment of any boy under twelve ; empowered miners to 
 appoint a check-weigher to take a correct account of the 
 weight of the minerals on their behalf; required that there 
 should be two shafts, with proper communications for every 
 seam that is being worked ; enjoined additional securities 
 for ventilation ; regulated most carefully the conditions 
 under which blasting shall be carried on ; enlarged the 
 necessity for certificates for managers and sub-managers, 
 and the powers of inspectors, and placed masters on the 
 same footing as the men in respect of prosecutions. 
 Mr. Burt, M.P., at Edinburgh, on October 11, 1887, said 
 that this was ' the greatest measure of the kind that had ever 
 yet been passed by the British Parliament,' and ' believed it 
 would do much to protect life and limb, mitigate suffering,
 
 62 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 and lessen the still enormous and terrible loss of life that 
 occurred in connection with the mining industry.' These 
 hopes have been realized, for in the report of mining 
 accidents for 1891, it appears that the number of deaths 
 from mining explosions in that year was smaller than in any 
 year since 1851, when a record was first published of them. 
 From explosions of gas the deaths in 1889 were 138; in 
 1890, 290; in 1891, 43. 
 
 In 1 890 was passed the Police Superannuation Act. For 
 the first time it gave to all constables a statutory right to 
 pension, without medical certificate, who retired after certain 
 specified years of service. There had grown up much dis- 
 content amongst the Metropolitan Police at the delay which 
 had occurred to the satisfaction of their hopes ; but by the 
 liberal grant of two-thirds of their pay, as a pension to those 
 who have completed tw^enty-five years' service, their grievance 
 has been removed. This change involved no additional 
 charge upon the rates, as it was met by funds supplied out 
 of the Imperial Budget of that year. ^^ 150,000 went to 
 the Miptropolitan Police, ;£" 150,000 to the County Police. 
 
 In 1 89 1 was parsed the Factories and Workshops Act. 
 It deals : 
 
 (i) With the evils of the sweating system by new and 
 stringent sanitary regulations applicable to all work- 
 shops, including domestic workshops and those of 
 grown-up workers. 
 
 (2) Provides by 'special rules' against mischiefs arising 
 
 in factories from 
 
 Dangerous machinery. 
 Dangerous or unhealthy premises. 
 Defective ventilation. 
 
 Defective means of escape from fire, in case of all 
 buildings existing or future. 
 
 (3) Makes certain and enforceable the present uncertain 
 
 and unenforceable limits of the hours of work for 
 women. 
 
 (4) Imposes minimum penalties for breaches of the Act 
 
 in all cases of second offences where the offence is 
 profitable.
 
 Home Office 63 
 
 (5) Requires all future factory buildings to have at least 
 
 a double means of escape from fire. 
 
 (6) Prohibits employment of women within four weeks 
 
 after child-birth. 
 
 (7) Enlarges the inspectors' powers of entry. 
 
 (8) Enlarges the time for starting prosecutions. 
 
 (9) Requires lists of outworkers to be kept. 
 
 (10) Enables Home Secretary to enforce sanitary pro- 
 visions in case of default of local authority. 
 
 In administration, the Home Office has been anxious to 
 make the system of mining and factory inspectorships satis- 
 factory to the great body of working-men. Before Mr. 
 Matthews' tenure of office, officers of the Army and Navy 
 were able to deduct the years of their service when stating 
 their age as candidates for factory inspectorships. This 
 privilege has been removed by him ; and while the general 
 limit of age for candidates for these posts is thirty, it has, in 
 the case of working-men, been raised from thirty-five to 
 thirty-eight. The system of examination works out so 
 fairly as between the two classes of candidates — those who 
 stand as working-men, and those who do not — that repre- 
 sentatives of the two classes frequently come out together in 
 one examination. Practically, the appointments of both 
 factory and mining inspectorships only go now to men with 
 actual practical or technical knowledge of factories or of 
 mines. Leading local Trade-Unionists have been appointed 
 in very many instances. As Mr. Matthews was at one time 
 singled out for the partisan attacks of the Radical Press, 
 perhaps it is not improper for me, who have had opportunities 
 of watching his discharge of the singularly difficult and pain- 
 ful duties of a Judge of Criminal Appeal, to bear my testi- 
 mony to the admirable patience, courage, and judgment 
 which he has brought to bear upon every one of the cases 
 with which he has had to deal.
 
 1 64 ] 
 
 IX. 
 
 LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD. 
 
 The great work of this office has been the Local Govern- 
 ment Act for E'.ngland and Wales. To properly appreciate 
 the full scope of the original conception of this measure, it 
 is useful to refer to the masterly speech in which Mr. Ritchie 
 introduced it to the House of Commons on March 19, 1888. 
 From the Bill, as it was introduced, the Licensing Clauses, 
 and the clauses creating District Councils, were droppea. 
 The obvious responsibility for the loss of the Licensing 
 Clauses must rest with those who raised a violent agitation 
 against them. The real responsibility for the loss of the 
 District Council Clauses attaches to those members of the 
 Opposition who consumed so much time in Committee in 
 moving amendments that the Government could not accept 
 without overloading the Bill, and the new County Councils. 
 This favourite Radical device of seeking to expand the 
 scope of a Bill by impracticable additions was very freely 
 indulged in. It achieves two ends. It enables the Radicals, 
 who supported the alteration, to boast of the popular principle 
 they endeavoured to engraft upon the Bill, and at the same 
 time to stigmatize the Conservatives (who were forced for 
 the sake of the Bill to oppose it) as opponents of the principle 
 involved. But though the Local Government Bill was, in 
 consequence of these Radical movements, shorn of some 
 portions of its original dimensions, it remained emphatically 
 a large measure of constructive statesmanship. To have 
 extended in one Session all the vital provisions of the 
 Municipal Corporations Act to the counties of England and
 
 Local Government Board 65 
 
 Wales, and to the Metropolis, was a great achievement. 
 Radical speakers have been fond of saying that perhaps 
 Conservative Governments could pass useful little measures, 
 but that they were incapable of producing really large ones. 
 This taunt has become obsolete. The passage of this Bill 
 alone destroyed its truth. There are two other considera- 
 tions to which attention should be paid. The Act has been 
 conspicuously successful in practice. It has worked with 
 singular ease, and in all its multifarious details has met the 
 practical requirements of county government with remark- 
 able precision. Even in London, in which case the experi- 
 ment was the boldest, and in which the clauses creating 
 the new municipality were hurried through the House of 
 Commons with but scanty discussion, it is remarkable that 
 so little practical difficulty has been found in moving the 
 gigantic new machinery. The second consideration is this : 
 Radicals have been prone to describe this measure as a 
 skeleton which required to be covered with flesh, which 
 they were burning to supply, but which Conservatives re- 
 jected. But it is remarkable what large additional duties 
 have already been imposed upon the County Councils by 
 subsequent legislation. The Technical Instruction Act, and 
 its successor the Customs and Excise Act of 1890, have 
 given to them most interesting educational duties. The 
 Small Holdings Bill will give them an opportunity of making 
 an experiment of the highest import to the future social an4 
 economical condition of Great Britain. In fact, it is clear 
 that the councils will gradually absorb larger and larger 
 duties, and that the District Councils of the future, especially 
 in London, will be required to take over some portions of 
 their administrative work. It is plain that, apart from party 
 predilections, there is a general desire to enlarge the sphere 
 of municipal activity, and to entrust to local authorities ever 
 larger powers of controlling the health, the education, and 
 the comfort of the community. It is equally clear that these 
 heavier duties must involve increased municipal expen- 
 diture. But if the whole of that expenditure were to con- 
 tinue to be borne by one section only of the community, 
 viz., the owners and occupiers of houses and lands, its 
 burden would become intolerable, an economical reaction 
 would set in, and the limits of municipal activity would 
 
 5
 
 66 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 necessarily be curtailed. In this context, therefore, it is 
 right to dwell again on the relief which the finance of Mr. 
 Goschen has been able, out of imperial funds, to afford to 
 the local rates. This financial policy is inseparably con- 
 nected with that development of municipal and county life 
 which springs from this great Local Government Act, and it 
 may fairly be stated that without the assistance of the former 
 the latter would be impossible. 
 
 To the credit of the Local Government Board must also 
 be assigned the passage of two other considerable Acts — 
 the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, and Public 
 Health London Act, 1891. The Housing of the Working 
 Classes Act (53 and 54 Vict., c. 70) 
 
 * consolidates, in one lucid and comprehensive statute, both 
 the group of enactments known as Cross's Acts, 1875, relating 
 to the clearing at public expense of large insanitary areas in 
 great towns, and another group known as Torrens' Acts, 1868- 
 1885, relating to compelling the improvement, proper main- 
 tenance, or demolition of single insanitary lodging-houses at 
 the expense of the owner, and the Labouring Classes Acts, 1851- 
 1885, commonly known as Shaftesbury's Acts. It also contains 
 the following new provisions : 
 
 'By section 21, in case of action under Cross's Acts, com- 
 pensation to expropriated owners, formerly subject to deduction 
 in respect of rental enhanced by overcrowding or in respect of 
 the cost necessary to abate nuisance arisingyr^;;^ overcroiuding^ 
 is now to be subject also to deduction in respect of rental en- 
 hanced by reason that a house is " used for illegal purposes " — 
 e.g.^ prostitution—and in respect of the cost necessary to abate 
 nuisance of a?iy kmd arising from the condition of the house, 
 and in respect of defective sanitation or repair of the house ; 
 and, moreover, 
 
 'By section 21 (2 c), where it is proved that "premises are 
 unfit for human habitation," the owner's compensation shall be 
 limited to " the value of the land and of the materials of the 
 buildings thereon." 
 
 ' By sections '^^'^ and 34, in case of proceedings under the 
 Torrens group of Acts, where an owner of a dwelling found 
 unfit for habitation fails to execute the required improvements, 
 the local authority must order or carry out at the owner's ex- 
 pense the demolition of the buildings. Previously to this they 
 can take summary proceedings to have the dwelling " closed," 
 and can (at the owner's expense) make an allowance to the 
 tenants on account of their expenses in removing.
 
 Local Government Board 67 
 
 ' By section 92 the power of proceeding under Torrens' Act is 
 for the first time given to rural sanitary authorities. 
 
 'In London, under an Act of 1879, the faikue of a vestry or 
 district board to proceed under Torrens' Acts could be repre- 
 sented to the Metropohtan Board of Works— now the London 
 County Council — who might supersede the discretion of the 
 vestry or district board, and act for them at their expense. By 
 section 45 of the new Act, the discretion of the rural sanitary 
 authorities may be similarly superseded by their County 
 Councils. 
 
 ' By section 39, an additional kind of scheme, of a parochial 
 rather than metropolitan kind, is devised, whereby the lesser 
 " local authorities," which include vestries and district boards 
 in London and rural sanitary authorities elsewhere, may at their 
 expense acquire and clear the sites of demolished buildings, as 
 well as adjoining land, {a) where they resolve that it would 
 benefit the health of the inhabitants of houses neighbouring to 
 any house ordered to be demolished, " if the area of the dwell- 
 ing-house of which such building forms part were used for all 
 or any of the following purposes, that is to say, either (i.) dedi- 
 cated as a highway or open space, or (ii.) appropriated, sold, or 
 let for the erection of dwellings for the working-classes, or (iii.) 
 exchanged with other neighbouring land which is more suitable 
 for the erection of such dwellings, and on exchange will be ap- 
 propriated, sold, or let for such erection ;" or {b) where it appears 
 that " the closeness, narrowness, and bad arrangement or bad 
 condition of any buildings or the want of light, air, ventilation, 
 or proper conveniences, or any other sanitary defects in any 
 building is dangerous or prejudicial to the health of the in- 
 habitants either of the said buildings or of the neighbouring 
 buildings, and that the demolition or the reconstruction and 
 rearrangement of the said buildings or of some of them, is 
 necessary to remedy the said evils, and that the area comprising 
 those buildings," etc., is too small to be dealt with as an 
 unhealthy area under Cross's Acts. By section 46 such schemes 
 may in London be contributed to by the County Council, or by 
 them undertaken over the heads of the Vestry or District Board 
 at metropolitan expense. 
 
 ' By section 41 the new principles of restricted compensation, 
 similar to those of section 2 1 above described, are applied to all 
 taking of land by the lesser local authorities to remove "ob- 
 structive " buildings, or in execution of parochial schemes under 
 section 39. 
 
 ' By section 38 four householders, as well as a medical officer, 
 may set the local authority in motion to remove obstructive 
 buildings. And the owner of land taken for such a purpose can 
 no longer insist on his entire holding being taken,
 
 68 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 * By section 88 the penalty is increased from ^20 to £^0 for 
 members of a local authority voting on questions relating to 
 property in which they are personally interested, and is now, for 
 the first time, enacted against members of London vestries and 
 district boards, and against provincial county councillors and 
 sanitary authorities, besides affecting, as heretofore, London 
 county councillors and town councillors in boroughs.' 
 
 The Public Health London Act (54 and 55 Vict., c. 76) 
 consolidated and amended the sanitary laws regulating 
 London. This had been done for the rest of the country 
 in 1875. But in London they were up to las^ year scattered 
 over twenty-nine separate statutes, commencing with Michael 
 Angelo Taylor's Act of 181 7. I doubt whether sufficient 
 importance has been attached to this, and the kindred 
 measure, consolidating the Housing of the Working Classes 
 Acts. As Mr. Ritchie has frequently pointed out, the old 
 reason why insanitary dwellings had not been dealt with, or 
 dangers to public health not met, by the local authorities, 
 has been not because the law is inadequate or defective, 
 and not even because the local authority is supine, but 
 because the law has been so confused and buried that it 
 was not properly appreciated. In future this difficulty in 
 the way of local administrators has been removed. The 
 law lies clearly set out before them in these two con- 
 solidating statutes, which have, in addition, carefully and 
 stringently strengthened the law on these two difficult 
 matters.
 
 [ 69 
 
 X. 
 
 BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 Probably few Acts passed during the Parliament have been 
 more popular in their object and operation than the Mer- 
 chandise Marks Act, 1887, which sought to stop at the port 
 of British importation goods manufactured abroad which 
 bore false British trade-marks. That such an Act was really 
 required was quickly shown. The Commissioners of 
 Customs reported that in the year ending on March 31, 
 1889, the number of stoppages of such goods amounted to 
 7,876, and included 217,458 separate packages. Germany 
 supplied the greatest number of falsely-marked goods, 
 France, Holland and Belgium coming next. Of the total 
 number of detections, nearly a half were made at the port of 
 London. 
 
 In a speech delivered at Clifton on November 14, 1890, 
 Sir M. Hicks-Beach thus summed up the work of his de- 
 partment up till then : 
 
 ' He should like to say something of the measures for which 
 he had been responsible during the past three years. First of 
 all, with regard to the mercantile marine, they had passed an 
 Act for compelling all ships that went to sea to carry sufficient 
 life-saving appliances for their passengers and crew in cases of 
 ordinary accident. He passed another Act for putting on a 
 fairer basis the charges made for ships who used their docks — a 
 very technical and difficult subject, and one in which British 
 people, as ratepayers and owners of the docks, were not a little 
 interested. And lastly, he passed an Act giving to pilots, with 
 whom they all sympathized, representation on pilotage boards, 
 and amending the law in certain other respects for the benefit 
 of that profession. Then, with regard to railways, he passed an 
 Act in 1888, a very important measure, enabling the Railway 
 Commissioners to deal with many matters of the greatest im- 
 portance to all who wished to send or receive produce or goods 
 by rail, and especially to prohibit any undue preference to
 
 70 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 foreign goods as against English. That Act also empowered 
 the Board of Trade to undertake the difficult task of laying down 
 a schedule and classification of rates to be charged on railways 
 instead of the present legal charges. They had done a great 
 deal towards the completion of that work, and he hoped this 
 next Session would see it completed. He believed the result 
 would be a considerable reduction of the legal charges as com- 
 pared with those that were now authorized by law. Then he 
 passed an Act, at the strong request of the representatives of 
 their sea-fishery interest, for the establishment of local sea-fishery 
 committees on different parts of the coast of England. Then, 
 besides the Directors' Liability Act, he also passed an Act pro- 
 viding that when companies were wound up by order of the 
 Court the assets should be distributed much more rapidly than 
 at present to those who were entitled to them ; and promoters 
 and directors, and other officers, would be examined and 
 thoroughly tested by a competent officer, and if they had been 
 found guilty of misconduct or fraud they would be punished as 
 they deserved. Finally, he had made an important amendment 
 in a law of peculiar interest to working men — namely, the law 
 relating to weights and measures. Formerly, inspectors of 
 weights and measures only tested the weights ; in future they 
 would test the weighing-machines as well as the weights, and he 
 suspected a good many in that room could tell him that was a 
 very important alteration indeed. (A voice : " Especially in 
 coal.") Yes, especially in coal. That was a tolerably long 
 statement of legislative changes. After speaking of the Load 
 Line Act and the amendment of the bankruptcy law, he said he 
 did not pretend that any of these were first-class measures, but 
 none the less they were subjects of the greatest advantage and 
 importance to the social welfare of the community, and as such 
 he ventured to say that they were of infinitely more importance 
 than not a few of those topics which were the occasion of the 
 fiercest Parliamentary fight.' — Times, November 15. 
 
 Speaking at the Congress of Seamen in October, 1891, 
 Mr. Plimsoll said : ■' For my part, therefore, although I am 
 a Radical, and although I recognise with gratitude all the 
 good which the Liberal Party has done to the nation, I 
 dread more than I can say any change in the position of 
 political parties, as I feel sure that the fair hopes which we 
 now indulge with reason on behalf of the seamen will 
 have to be abandoned if we lose our present Government ; 
 and I earnestly recommend seamen, therefore, and all other 
 watering-men w^ho care for sailors, sailors' wives, and sailors' 
 children, to do their very best at the next General Election 
 to keep the Conservatives in power.'
 
 71 
 
 XL 
 
 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 The Bill creating this new department was read a second 
 time in the House of Commons on June 3, 1889. By it 
 functions relating to agriculture and the farming interest 
 generally, which had been performed by the branches and 
 the staff of various public departments, were transferred to 
 and consolidated in this one Board, which was to have at its 
 head a new official, the President of the Board of Agri- 
 culture. The total additional expense of the new depart- 
 ment in this year does not exceed ;^2,7io, and Mr. Chaplin 
 has been able fully to justify its constitution by the adminis- 
 trative work alone which it has been able to perform. 
 
 (i) In respect of pleuro-pneumonia : In 1889-90, the 
 year before the Board came into existence, there were 499 
 outbreaks of pleuro-pneumonia in the country. In 1890-91, 
 after the department had begun to deal with it, there were 
 295 ; and in the eight months since September, 1891, there 
 have been only fifty outbreaks. 
 
 (2) In respect of foot-and-mouth disease : The last 
 previous outbreak was in 1880, when it was calculated to 
 have inflicted a loss of ^3,000,000 on the agricultural com- 
 munity. Mr. Chaplin, in a speech at Donnington on the 
 eleventh week of the present outbreak of the disease, com- 
 pared the success which had attended the efforts of his 
 department to stamp it out, as compared with the history of 
 what had occurred in 1880. In the eleventh week after the 
 discovery of the disease in t88o, the number of fresh out- 
 breaks was 338 ; in this year, in the eleventh week, the 
 number reported to the department was only five.
 
 72 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 (3) In respect of hydrophobia : In the same speech Mr. 
 Chaplin stated that in 1889 there were 312 cases of mad 
 dogs in 61 counties ; in 1891, after the muzzling order, 129 
 in 20 counties; in 1891, 79 in 17 counties; and in the 
 present year there were 4 cases in January, 3 in February, 
 and none in March. 
 
 Under this department an Intelligence Board has been 
 established for the collection of statistics, and the diffusion 
 of information and advice to agriculturists. 
 
 In legislation, it will be convenient here to refer to that 
 which was passed affecting the agricultural interest, anterior 
 to the erection of this department, and consequently under 
 the charge of other Ministers, and to such legislation effected 
 by private members. Thus it was Mr. Ritchie who carried 
 the first Allotments Act of 1887 (50 and 51 Vict., c. 48). 
 The operative parts of this act are : Section 2. Any six 
 electors in either urban or rural districts may apply 
 to the sanitary authority, and this authority 'shall by 
 purchase or hire acquire any suitable land adequate to pro- 
 vide a sufficient number of allotments ' (of any size not 
 exceeding one acre) ' and shall let such allotments to 
 persons belonging to the labouring population desiring to 
 take the same.' 
 
 Section 3. 'Where the sanitary authority are unable to 
 acquire suitable lands by hiring or purchase by agreement 
 . . . the county authority may make a provisional order, 
 authorizing . . . the purchase and taking of land com- 
 pulsorily.' This order must be confirmed by the Local 
 Government Board and by Parliament. 
 
 Section 7. 'The rents of the allotments shall be fixed at 
 an amount not less than such as may reasonably be expected 
 to ensure the sanitary authority from loss.' 
 
 Section 9. ' Any number not less than one-sixth of tho 
 electors in a rural district ' may petition for the election of 
 allotment managers. 'The sanitary authority shall order 
 such election,' ' and all the Parliamentary electors shall be 
 entitled to vote.' 
 
 Section 10. 'All expenses incurred by the sanitary 
 authority under this Act shall be defrayed as part of the 
 general expenses of this execution of the Public Health 
 Act, 1875.'
 
 Board of Agriculture 73 
 
 Section 12. 'The county authority may authorize' the 
 acquisition of pasture land in the same way as allotments, 
 to be similarly applied for the benefit of the labouring 
 population. 
 
 In 1890 the Act 53 and 54 Vict., c. 65, was passed, 
 which extends the Act of 1887 by giving a right of appeal to 
 the County Council where it is shown that the local sanitary 
 authority are remiss, and by empowering the County 
 Council to exercise all the powers of the local authority 
 under the principal Act. 
 
 In 1887 Sir G. Birkbeck carried the Allotments Com- 
 pensation Act (50 and 51 Vict., c. 26), which gives com- 
 pensation to holders of cottage gardens and allotments for 
 crops, trees and shrubs left in the ground at the end of their 
 tenancies. 
 
 In 1888 the Government passed the Glebe Lands Act 
 (51 and 52 Vict., c. 20), providing facilities for the acquisi- 
 tion by local authorities of Church lands, and their subse- 
 quent use as allotments. 
 
 In 1 89 1 the Allotments Rating Act (54 and 55 Vict., 
 c. 33) reduced the sanitary rates on allotments to the same 
 rule as those on market-gardens. 
 
 It is satisfactory to know that, as a consequence of this 
 legislation, and of the general desire of landowners to 
 supply land for allotments, the number of allotments has 
 been, and is, steadily increasing. The returns show that in 
 1873 there were 246,000; in 1886, 357,000; in 1891,* 
 455,000 allotments. In their respective ways, the following 
 Acts also are beneficial to the agricultural interest : the 
 Margarine Act, 1887, which punishes the fraudulent sale 
 as English butter of foreign substitutes for it. The Markets 
 and P'airs Acts, 1887-91, which require the local authorities 
 to provide means for weighing cattle. The Pleuro- 
 pneumonia Act, 1890, passed by Mr. ChapUn, which trans- 
 fers the burden of compensation for slaughtered cattle from 
 local rates to imperial funds. 
 
 The Small Holdings Bill of this year gives effect to the 
 recommendations of the House of Commons' Select Com- 
 mittee on Small Holdings, which sat from 1888 to 1890. 
 It empowers County Councils to borrow money from the 
 Public Loans Commissioners at 3^ per cent, for the pro-
 
 74 ^ix Years of Unionist Government 
 
 vision of small holdings, which are not to exceed fifty acres. 
 They may not borrow to a larger extent than the sum 
 whose interest will represent a rate of id. in the £,. But 
 that will enable a sum of ^10,000,000 to be borrowed. 
 The Bill further empowers County Councils to let lands, 
 not exceeding fifteen acres in size, or of an annual value of 
 not more than ;^i5. The County Council may delegate 
 the selling, letting, and management of small holdings to a 
 committee of five members. Three of them are to be 
 members of the Council, and two to be representatives of 
 the immediate locality. It is obvious that, though ad- 
 mittedly an experimental recourse, and of limited applica- 
 tion, it is of the highest import, and may have very 
 far-reaching, social, and economical consequences. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT. 
 
 By no department has more remarkable work been accom- 
 plished in the six years than by this. It is admitted com- 
 monly that Mr. Mundella was a zealous administrator, and 
 an enthusiast for education ; but the progress made in every 
 branch of national education during these years is indis- 
 putably greater than in the preceding six. A rough proof of 
 this is given by the fact that ^11,000,000 more has been 
 spent on it during the last five years than in the correspond- 
 ing period of Mr. Gladstone's last Government. 
 
 In 1889 the Technical Instruction Act was passed. It 
 empowers County or Borough Councils to supply, or aid the 
 supply of, technical instruction out of the local rate to an 
 amount not exceeding id. in the £^1. The local authority 
 may appoint a committee consisting, either wholly or partly, 
 of its members to carry out the details of the work. The 
 managers of schools or institutions giving technical instruc- 
 tion in the district of a local authority may transfer their 
 functions to the local authority. Then, in 1890, when the 
 proposals of the Government in the Local Taxation (Customs 
 and Excise) Bill for the extinction of licences were withdrawn.
 
 The Education Department 75 
 
 the money which was to have been devoted to this object — 
 ;^35o,ooo — was set free, and was added to the sum of 
 ;£"393,ooo which, under the Bill, was to be handed over to 
 the County Councils. Thus a sum of ^740,376 was pro- 
 duced, which was appropriated to the County Councils with 
 an expression of Parliamentary opinion that it should be 
 used by them for technical instruction. A House of Lords 
 return, No. 64, was presented to Parliament on May 2, 
 1892, which gives a most interesting and satisfactory account 
 of the use to which the County Councils have put this grant. 
 Its memorandum states as follows : 
 
 * This return shows that the Councils of the one hundred and 
 nine counties and county boroughs in England (excepting the 
 county of Monmouth) have decided to apply their shares of the 
 residue of the Customs and Excise duties in respect of the year 
 ended March 31, 1891, in the following manner : 
 
 In 78 cases wholly to technical education (including 
 
 science and art). 
 In 27 cases partly to those purposes. 
 In 4 cases wholly in aid of rates. 
 
 * The Councils of the fifteen Welsh counties and county 
 boroughs, and Monmouth, to which the Welsh Intermediate 
 Education Act, 1889, applies, have decided to apply their shares 
 of the duties in the following manner : 
 
 In 12 cases wholly to intermediate education, or inter- 
 mediate and technical education combined. 
 In I case partly to intermediate and technical education. 
 In I case partly to intermediate education. 
 In I case partly to technical education. 
 ' The total amount paid to the Councils out of the residue of 
 the duties in respect of the year amounted to ^^740,376 8s. 3d. 
 ' This sum has been applied as follows : 
 
 To technical education, including science and £ s. d. 
 
 art and intermediate education 496,569 15 10 
 
 In aid of rates 236,242 18 10 
 
 Unappropriated 7>563 13 7 
 
 ^74o»376 8 3' 
 
 The Welsh Intermediate Education Act, which is here 
 referred to, and which had been passed in 1889, was not 
 originally a Government measure, but, practically, it was 
 taken charge of by Sir W. Hart Dyke, and owed its passage 
 to this Ministerial support and guidance. In the Report of
 
 76 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 the Charity Commissioners for 1892, pp. 36-40, a most 
 encouraging account is given of the zeal with which the 
 Welsh people have availed themselves of the provisions of 
 the Act of 1889, and of the funds which have come to them 
 under the Act of 1890. 
 
 In 1889 ;^i 5,000 was granted to University Colleges in 
 Great Britain. 
 
 In 1890 the New Code Act was passed; its purport is 
 described in the leaflet issued by the National Union, which 
 I now quote : 
 
 * The keynote of the Code is freedom. To teachers, freedom 
 from cast-iron rule and harassing restrictions ; to children, 
 freedom from cram and overpressure ; to inspectors, freedom 
 from barren routine duties and a long bondage to mechanical 
 tests ; to managers, freedom from anxiety as to their financial 
 resources and liberty of choice in rendering the school course 
 practical and useful. These great results were made possible by 
 the Report of the Royal Commission, which was appointed by 
 Lord Salisbury's first Government in 1885, and it is to the 
 Government of this day, and particularly to the courage and 
 sagacity of the Conservative Ministers at the head of the Educa- 
 tion Department, that the country is indebted for what was 
 described by one Radical member of Parliament as a revo- 
 lutionary change in our educational system, and by another as 
 the largest measure of emancipation that had been passed in 
 the interest of the people since the days of Mr. Forster. 
 
 'The motive which underlies the whole scheme has been to 
 treat those engaged in elementary education as intelligent beings, 
 occupied in drawing out the capacities of the taught, and to 
 afford the scholar the most complete moral and physical equip- 
 ment for the battle of life that the necessarily short period of 
 school age will permit ; and in order to apply these principles to 
 the fullest extent, the machinery has been so reorganized, and 
 its various parts so informed with a new spirit, that for the first 
 time since the bulk of the people have been brought under the 
 influence of education, teachers and scholars are allowed the 
 exercise of their best faculties, free from the cramping restraints 
 of rigid and mechanical regulations. 
 
 * In the first place the code secures the financial stability of 
 schools by substituting 
 
 A LIBERAL FIXED GRANT 
 of 13s. 6d., which is on the present average more than three- 
 fourths of the whole grant, for three distinct grants, of which 
 only 4s. 6d. was fixed and the remainder variable, nearly one 
 half the average grant being dependent on the actual passes
 
 The Education Department 77 
 
 of individual children. By this arrangement it is calculated 
 that 36 per cent, of the schools in the country (a still larger pro- 
 portion in rural districts) will gain in sums rising to 5s. per 
 head : this gain is unconditional the first year, and will be 
 permanent to all schools that adapt themselves to the required 
 conditions. A free gift is in fact offered to managers for the 
 purpose of making their schools efficient, in striking contrast to 
 the policy which has been followed for years, and still finds 
 some advocates among Radical members of Parliament, of 
 penalizing a school's weakness by taking away the means of 
 improvement. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that this 
 grant cannot be withdrawn unless the school is condemned as 
 inefficient : it is furthei provided that no school shall be pro- 
 nounced inefficient, and the grant withdrawn, until it has had a 
 year's warning and a formal appeal to the judgment of a chief 
 inspector against the second adverse verdict has been allowed. 
 
 '"payment by results" abolished. 
 * Incidental to this change follows the disappearance of pay- 
 ment on the results of individual examination, with its effects of 
 rigid classification and the treatment of child and teacher as 
 money-making machines ; the merit grant also goes with its 
 irritating and often unfair distinctions, and its tendency to set 
 up fluctuating and capricious standards of excellence to the 
 worry, and sometimes the prejudice, of really good teachers. 
 The importance of the individual " pass " shrinks into insignifi- 
 cance compared with the progress of the scholars as a whole. 
 
 'absolute freedom of classification. 
 ' The capacity of a child becomes the only test of classifica- 
 tion, and in applying this test every disadvantage, under whieh 
 child or school may have laboured, will be allowed due weight, 
 and all risk will vanish of teachers being held responsible for 
 such circumstances as irregularity of attendance and the gaps in 
 school fife caused by winter storms and epidemic sickness. 
 
 'new aid to voluntary schools. 
 'The effect of these general provisions upon all schools will 
 be very great, but particularly upon that large class which are 
 mainly under voluntary management, and often conducted with 
 difficulty in rural districts and the poorer quarters of our great 
 towns, and an incalculable impetus will thereby be given to 
 educational efficiency in districts where for many causes it has 
 hitherto languished ; but the Code, taking into consideration 
 the relatively greater cost of schools in the midst of small popu- 
 lations and in sparsely peopled districts, likewise offers a special 
 grant of ^10 to which the 17s. 6d. limit does not apply (Code 
 Act, 1890, sec. 2) to no less than 4,500 schools, which amounts
 
 78 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 to an additional grant of 3s. yd. a head in respect of those in 
 average attendance at such schools. 
 
 ' Further, the difficulties teachers have to deal with in small 
 schools are met by special courses in class subjects and needle- 
 work, providing for a grouping of standards and a consequent 
 saving of teaching power. In feet, it is estimated that of schools 
 at present serving populations under five hundred, more than 
 half will gain largely by the fixed grant being raised to 13s. 6d., 
 and all may obtain the additional £io. 
 
 'liberty of choice in class subjects. 
 
 * In dealing with the curriculum, the same free and enlightened 
 spirit has been shown. A just reproach against former codes 
 was the want of any allowance for different classes of schools, 
 and the enforcement of similar courses of study on all. Free- 
 dom of classification, intelligently applied, will now go far to 
 adjust the standard of attainment to the widely divergent cir- 
 cumstances of schools attended by children whose physical and 
 mental condition are totally unlike, but the code in giving com- 
 plete liberty of choice and treatment in class subjects takes note 
 of other elements of difference, and suggests alternative courses 
 adapted to the needs of particular districts. It thus lays down 
 the great principle that education to be efficient should be 
 practical, and directed, in the first instance, towards giving the 
 scholar a good start in life. 
 
 'instruction in practical subjects. 
 
 ' Under this head comes the encouragement of drawing, ele- 
 mentary science, and manual instruction, and of cookery and 
 laundry-work for girls. Among the most important of the 
 schemes of instruction in science is a course in agriculture, 
 which, if intelligently followed and developed, will give scholars 
 in the rural districts an intimate acquaintance, not only with the 
 phenomena of nature, but also with the processes and appliances 
 of that industry to which their lives will be devoted, and may be 
 supplemented, where opportunity offers, by practical illustra- 
 tions in the school-garden or allotment ; schemes of instruction 
 in the elements of mining and metallurgy may be substituted in 
 the centres of the coal and iron industry, chemistry and 
 mechanics will find a place in the manufacturmg towns, and all 
 these subjects will be introduced to the lower standards through 
 the medium of object lessons, designed to awaken the powers of 
 observation and train the mind in habits of reflection before any 
 attempt is made to specialize the teaching of the science itself. 
 
 ' In order to promote teaching of this kind, the combination 
 of several schools to provide central places of instruction, or the 
 employment of peripatetic teachers is suggested, and by such 
 means giils may leave school with all the domestic knowledge
 
 The Education Department 79 
 
 required to make them useful at home, and eventually careful 
 and thrifty housewives, and boys may in the agricultural dis- 
 tricts acquire the tastes and inclinations of rural life, which they 
 can afterwards turn to good purpose on the farm, the allotment, 
 or the small holding, and in the towns those technical and com- 
 mercial aptitudes which are necessary for the equipment of 
 Britisji commerce and industry in the struggle with foreign com- 
 petition. 
 
 'THE MORAL AND PHYSICAL ASPECTS 
 
 of education have also come in for their share of attention, as 
 the Code emphasizes, by means of a special and graduated grant, 
 the importance of conduct and moral training, as essential 
 factors in the success and usefulness of a public elementary 
 school, and lays down that the time devoted to instruction in 
 physical exercises may be included in a school attendance. 
 These will cover simple forms of bodily training, instruction in 
 swimming where the use of baths can be obtained, and in other 
 recreative pursuits, which are of the first importance to the 
 health and industrial capacity of the people ; while in regard to 
 swimming, opportunity is given for teaching a life-saving accom- 
 plishment of the highest value to our seafaring and riverside 
 population. 
 
 'the QUALIFICATIONS OF TEACHERS. 
 
 ' Large reforms have also been introduced dealing with the 
 composition and qualifications of the teaching profession. It 
 has been made incumbent on managers, in some instances, to 
 employ more teachers, and the Code takes effectual guarantees 
 that they shall be more efficient in every grade. The pupil 
 teacher system is reconstituted on a firmer basis, and one which 
 will conduct into the organized ranks of the profession none but 
 the flower of the apprentices. The conditions under which 
 certificates have been hitherto granted are made much more 
 stringent, and the entrance of untrained teachers into the pro- 
 fession will in the first year be checked by more than 1,200, a 
 change which will go far to raise its status and efficiency ; while 
 the establishment upon an experimental scale, which can easily 
 be expanded, of a system of Day Training Colleges, in connec- 
 tion with the University Colleges in large towns and with the 
 older Universities, will at once supply increased facilities for 
 training, and bring the whole teaching profession into touch with 
 wider standards of knowledge and a more liberal culture than 
 has yet been generally associated with the possession of the 
 Department's certificate. 
 
 'new INSTRUCTIONS TO INSPECTORS. 
 
 ' The position of the inspector is transformed from that of a 
 mere examiner or assessor of the different factors, which went
 
 8o Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 to make up the monetary total of the grant, into one of advice 
 and assistance to managers and teachers in the performance of 
 an arduous and important public duty ; he will devote more tim6 
 to visits without notice, and less to the mechanical drudgery in 
 which he has been absorbed in the past. Additional facilities 
 are given for the payment of the grant without examination in 
 schools of well-tried excellence, or where circumstances might 
 render the examination unfair to the deserts of a school, and the 
 time thus set free will enable the inspector to restore to inspec- 
 tion its true place and value in a system of elementary education, 
 and exercise an influence at once more wide and beneficial. 
 
 ' The standards of exemption have been left untouched, as it 
 was felt that any disturbance of the conditions of juvenile labour 
 at the present moment was liable to be misunderstood and to 
 promote reaction, but by the variety and practical character im- 
 parted to the curriculum, and by the disappearance from school- 
 life of all that was burdensome and mechanical, parents are 
 encouraged to believe that the best interests of their children 
 are served by keeping them at school. By a change permitting 
 children who have passed Standard VII. to remain on the 
 register until 14, teachers are relieved of the temptation to 
 retard the progress of clever children ; and these, after passing 
 Standard VII., can now devote themselves to special objects of 
 practical utility. 
 
 ' But as many children cannot afford to remain in the day 
 school till fourteen, the Code has sought to restore life and 
 activity to our evening school system, by incorporating with it 
 
 continuation schools 
 of a practical and attractive type, and by withdrawing the 
 present irksome condition (Code Act, 1890, sec. i) that all 
 evening scholars must necessarily be examined in the standard 
 subjects. By these expedients it is hoped that the enormous 
 annual waste involved to the country and to the scholars in the 
 loss of what they have learnt in the day school will be checked 
 during the gap that separates their passing the standard of 
 exemption and obtaining fixed occupation, and that by a course 
 of instruction at once practical and recreative an enormous 
 improvement in the moral and social condition of the people 
 will be brought about.' 
 
 Free Education. 
 
 In 1 89 1 the Free Education Act was passed. ' It had ' (and 
 I quote again from a leaflet issued by the National Union), 
 
 ' the immediate effect of extinguishing school - fees from 
 September i, 1891, in more than two-thirds of the schools of
 
 The Education Department 8i 
 
 the country, and of largely reducing them in a great proportion 
 of the remainder ; and the Education Department will com- 
 pensate managers out of Imperial revenues by a fee-grant of 
 I OS. a year per head in average attendance. 
 
 'This result is brought about by the provision that in any 
 school receiving the grant, where the fees have hitherto not 
 exceeded the amount of such grant, no fees shall henceforth be 
 charged ; and in other cases fees must be reduced in the aggre- 
 gate by the amount of the grant. 
 
 * The acceptance of the fee-grant is optional^ and its refusal 
 from the date at which the Act comes into operation does not 
 bar school-managers from accepting it later, but their choice 
 must in all cases obviously be determined by the circumstances 
 of the district, because the Act empowers the Education 
 Department, after a year's grace, to see that free school-accom- 
 modation is provided for all children between three and fifteen, 
 for whom such accommodation is desired, so that wherever a 
 school is the only one in a district it is almost certain to become 
 free by the direct operation of the Act. 
 
 *A parent, however, will only be able to claim as a right 
 gratuitous education for his child at a school where the accom- 
 modation has been declared tree ; he may join with others in 
 representing to the Education Department that there is an 
 insufficiency of free places for their children in the school 
 district in which they reside, but the Act gives him no power to 
 claim a free place for his child in any particular school which 
 still retains the right to charge fees. 
 
 ' As schools with an income from fees of less than los. per head 
 are almost exclusively those in rural villages and the poorer 
 cjuarters of large towns, the genuine poor will gain the principal, 
 and most immediate relief from the burden of school fees, and 
 what they will perhaps esteem more highly, complete exemption 
 from the humiliating expedient of applying to school boards and 
 boards of guardians respectively for the remission or for the 
 payment of such fees. 
 
 ' The reduction of fees in other schools will afford relief to 
 many who, though willing and anxious to pay a small fee, have 
 found the amount hitherto charged a heavy addition to their 
 weekly expenses, Avhile in some cases the direct operation of 
 the Act may be assisted by the admission of a certain propor- 
 tion of free scholars, the fees still chargeable being raised from 
 the remainder. 
 
 ' In schools where the income from fees and the sale of books 
 is less than los. per head, managers are required to make the 
 provision of school-requisites a first charge upon the additional 
 grant, so that parents will be relieved of this item of cost as 
 well, but the rest of the surplus may be devoted to relieving 
 
 6
 
 82 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 the burden which weighs upon voluntary subscribers in many 
 places, or, in the case of districts under school-boards, to the 
 remission of rates, subject, of course, to the obligation to spend 
 what is necessary in ordei to place a school and maintain it in 
 a state of efficiency. Direct relief will also be afforded to the 
 ratepayers, in respect of the sum of ^{^60,000, paid annually by 
 the guardians of the poor as school-fees on behalf of non-pauper 
 children. 
 
 ' As, moreover, the whole fee grant will in all cases be included 
 in the income from other sources, as an equivalent to which the 
 ordinary Parliamentary grant is paid, the 17s. 6d. limit (against 
 which so much may be urged when its effect is still further to 
 reduce the income of schools whose financial resources are 
 already straitened by low fees), will be automatically raised in 
 every school where the fee-income has not hitherto reached los. 
 per head, and the schools serving the poorest populations will 
 thus derive the greatest pecuniary benefit from the change. 
 Managers are also expressly permitted to pay any surplus arising 
 out of the fee-grant into a common fund for distribution to other 
 schools. 
 
 ' Where the fee-grant per head is less than the income 
 hitherto received from fees, the managers are entitled to raise 
 the balance by distributing the fees retained on any system they 
 please ; and the Act contains provisions enabling the Education 
 Department to sanction the imposition of increased fees in 
 certain schools of a group, and authorizing managers so to 
 associate themselves that the surplus income on the accounts of 
 Die or more schools may be devoted to the purposes of any 
 other members of the group ; which arrangement, while pre- 
 serving schools of different grades, will make it easier to supply 
 without friction the necessary amount of free school accommoda- 
 tion in any district, and render the new system capable of simple 
 adjustment to the circumstances of different localities. 
 
 * The liberty of religious teaching and the independence of 
 voluntary management have been stoutly maintained by the 
 Government against the attacks of the Radicals, who sought to 
 deny the benefits of the Act to any school in which distinctive 
 religious teaching was given, and to introduce local control into 
 the managing bodies of voluntary schools, as a step towards 
 the establishment of universal school boards and a high educa- 
 tion rate. 
 
 ' The Opposition also attempted without success to remove 
 the presumption of suitability, which has hitherto attached to 
 every public elementary school, so as to make it possible for a 
 small minority of malcontents in every rural village to impose 
 for political reasons a second school upon the locality, on the 
 pretext that a Church of England school, even with the protec-
 
 The Education Department 83 
 
 tion of the conscience clause, was unsuitable for the children of 
 Nonconformists. 
 
 * To sum up, the Act affords the largest measure of relief from 
 that particular form of taxation which, under the name of school 
 fees, is directly connected with compulsory education, and in- 
 cludes in that relief all persons who desire to avail themselves 
 of it. The whole community undertakes a charge of ^2,000,000, 
 which has hitherto fallen mainly on the working -classes and 
 small shopkeepers, and this is effected not by any violent dis- 
 ruption of the existing system, or with any neglect of the in- 
 terests that have grown up in the fifty years during which the 
 State has interfered with the education of the people, but by an 
 almost automatic process, gently, gradually, and with due regard 
 not only to the feelings, but even the prejudices, of the popula- 
 tion. 
 
 ' It has been recognised that the voluntary system is dear to 
 the English people, in both its religious and economical aspects ; 
 and one of the principal effects of the Act will be so to supple- 
 ment the resources of voluntary schools in the rural districts, 
 that the establishment of school boards, with what has proved 
 a most costly and inefficient machinery in "small parishes, will 
 be definitely arrested in most parts of the country. 
 
 ' By the emphasis which the Act lays upon grouping, managers 
 in districts where there are many voluntary schools will be 
 encouraged to combine their resources for mutual organization 
 and defence. Subscriptions will be stimulated, and the substi- 
 tution of a fixed and certain source of revenue, paid quarterly 
 out of the public treasury, in lieu of precarious and fluctuating 
 sums collected in driblets, often with great trouble and worry, 
 will go far to strengthen the financial status of all classes 'of 
 voluntary schools ; while the fresh legislative sanction which 
 has been given to their independent and religious character will 
 tend to confirm them in public estimation, and fortify their 
 position against the attacks of the secularist, and the more 
 insidious hostility which conceals itself under the specious guise 
 of " unsectarian " opinion.' 
 
 In connection with the Free Education Act, it may be 
 noted that the Education Department took advantage of the 
 abolition of fees to issue a circular inculcating the advan- 
 tages of thrift. This is now printed as an appendix to the 
 Code, and has led in a large number of instances to the 
 establishment of school savings-banks, in which the money 
 hitherto paid in fees has been deposited for the future benefit 
 of the children. There are no returns of the actual amount 
 thus deposited ; but the latest returns from the Post Office
 
 84 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 Savings Banks show that the sum of ;£'7 1,000,000 is now 
 deposited with them, which is the largest amount yet 
 reached. 
 
 In 1892 an Evening School Code has been laid before 
 Parliament. It abolishes the last vestige of payment on the 
 result of individual examination, and completes a system of 
 continuation schools by substituting for the standards in use 
 in the day-schools courses of study extending over seven 
 years. A new schedule of subjects, specially designed for 
 evening schools, has been drawn up, with particular reference 
 to the industrial and commercial aspects of education. The 
 following figures are interesting. During the five years of 
 Mr. Mundella's administration, the number of night-scholars 
 examined fell from 38,493 in 1880, to 24,233 in 1885; 
 during the five years of Sir W. Dyke's administration, the 
 number in average attendance has risen from 26,089 in 1886, 
 to 51,974 in 1891 ; and there is reason to believe that the 
 figures for last winter will show a further large increase. 
 
 For public education in England and Wales there has this 
 year been voted ;£^5,946,2i3. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 SCOTLAND (THE SCOTCH OFFICE). 
 
 Scotland has with England and Wales shared in the 
 general advantages that have followed on the foreign and 
 financial policy of the Government, and on its administra- 
 tive work. It has shared also the benefit of such general 
 measures of legislation as the Mines Regulation Act and 
 the last Factory Act. But, in addition, Scotland has re- 
 ceived from the Imperial Parliament in the last six years 
 much special legislation of considerable importance. The 
 Session of 1889 was devoted mainly to Scotch business, and 
 in it were passed the Scotch Local Government Act, which 
 gave to the Scotch counties, on analogous lines, the popular 
 and representative local government which the English Act 
 had given to the English counties ; and the Universities 
 Act, which still further popularized the Scotch Universities. 
 In 1887 were passed the Criminal Procedure (Scotland)
 
 Post Office 85 
 
 Act and the Crofters Act. In 1889 the Herring Fishery 
 Act and the Municipal Electors Corrupt and Illegal Prac- 
 tices Act were passed. Free Education was given to 
 Scotland as a complement of the provisions of its Local 
 Government Act. Under the Customs and Excise Grant 
 of 1890, and the Equivalent Grant of 1891, large sums 
 have been allocated to Scotch purposes, partly in relief of 
 rates, and partly for the furtherance of technical and 
 secondary education. As the result of a commission of 
 inquiry into the condition of the West Highlands and 
 Islands, emigration has been assisted from the distressed 
 districts, and grants made for the development of their 
 resources and industries. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 POST OFFICE. 
 
 Changes and reforms have been constantly introduced 
 during the six years. An express delivery for letters and 
 parcels has been started. Letter cards have been intro- 
 duced ; the inland sample post has been re-established. 
 The experiment of telegraphic money-orders has been made. 
 As regards foreign and colonial mails, new contracts, giving 
 greater speed, have been made for the carriage of the mails 
 to India, China, and the West Indies. One postal rate of 
 2^d. for the colonies as a whole has been established. As 
 regards the great army of Post Office employes, this letter 
 from Mr. Raikes' secretary showed the anxiety of the de- 
 partment to meet their legitimate wishes : 
 
 ' 1 6th February, 1891. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I am desired by Mr. Raikes to acknowledge the receipt 
 of your letter, in which you call his attention to certain state- 
 ments which have been made to the effect that he is reducing 
 the wages and salaries of Post Office servants. The following 
 facts will, Mr. Raikes thinks, enable you to judge how far such 
 a statement is correct : 
 
 ' Last year the scale of wages of the London sorters was 
 increased by as much as six shillings a week, many new first- 
 class sorterships were created, giving promotion to deserving
 
 86 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 sorters of the second class, and at the same time the whole 
 class of junior sorters was admitted to the second class. Cor- 
 responding improvements in the scale of pay were effected in 
 Edinburgh and Dublin, and altogether about 4,000 men have 
 benefited by these changes. It is not, however, in the Metro- 
 politan offices alone that the position of Post Office employes has 
 been improved. In March last Mr. Raikes appointed a com- 
 mittee to consider the pay and position of provincial sorting- 
 clerks and telegraphists, and, as a result of the recommenda- 
 tions of this committee, no less than 10,000 provincial officers, 
 both men and women, were given better pay, and many other 
 advantages, such as extra pay for work done on Sundays and 
 Bank Holidays, increased pay for overtime work, and pay during 
 absence from sickness. These benefits have also been extended 
 to the telegraph staff at the Metropolitan offices, numbering 
 over 3,000 persons. The cost of these concessions has already 
 amounted to ;/^2oo,ooo a year. A revision was at the same time 
 set on foot, and is now in progress, of the upper appointments in 
 the postal and telegraphic staff at all the chief provincial offices. 
 This revision will not only improve the position of the super- 
 intending officers themselves, but will greatly improve the pros- 
 pects of the juniors. 
 
 ' Other minor improvements have been made, and it may 
 safely be asserted that at no period in the history of the Post 
 Office have such widespread benefits been conferred on the 
 junior classes of its servants. 
 
 * Yours very faithfully, 
 
 ' R. A. Egerton.' 
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 
 
 To the great volume of legislative and administrative work 
 which may be specifically attributed to particular Govern- 
 ment departments, and which has been set out in bare 
 outline in the previous pages, it is right to add one or two 
 other deeds which were not in the same way the outcome 
 of special offiices : 
 
 The revision of the Procedure Rules of the House of 
 Commons in 1887 and 1888. 
 
 The satisfactory settlement of the thorny question of 
 Royal Grants in 1889. 
 
 The Tithes Act of 189 1, which it may be hoped will 
 enable the Welsh clergy to obtain, without lawless friction, 
 the payment of their tithes.
 
 Conclusion 87 
 
 The Clergy Discipline Act of 1892, which was obstructed 
 with such Boeotian bigotry by a knot of young Welsh 
 Radicals. 
 
 The Savings Banks Act of 1891, which imposes strict 
 conditions cf audit, etc., to preclude fraud or careless 
 management. 
 
 In general administration it is interesting to note to what 
 an extent our Government contracts with foreigners have 
 diminished since 1886. The first Parliamentary return on 
 this subject was made on June 26, 1886, in pursuance of an 
 order, moved for by Mr. Peter McDonald, for a return ' of 
 all contracts for articles of home manufacture made in the 
 United Kingdom by the several Government departments 
 during the past seven years with contractors outside the 
 kingdom.' The return showed that in that period contracts 
 amounting to ^886,566 had been made with foreign con- 
 tractors, giving an annual average of about ^126,000 spent 
 in this way outside the United Kingdom. Mr. Gladstone 
 had been in office for six of these seven years. Since 1886 
 Colonel Howard Vincent has moved each year for a similar 
 return, and, as a consequence of the public attention thus 
 excited, and of the increased care of the departments, the 
 last return, dated July 3, 1891, shows that for the year be- 
 tween April I, 1890, and March 31, 1891, the former annual 
 total of money expended in such contracts has been 
 reduced by ^89,000, and now stands at ;2{^37,ooo, and that 
 of that sum ^34,542 was expended on Italian woods of the 
 special hardness required for butts and fore ends of rifles. 
 The return for 1891-92 showed that ;£"39,i43 had been 
 spent on foreign contracts. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The National Liberal Federation in its manifesto of August, 
 1886, with a ludicrous ignorance of the moving forces in 
 contemporary politics, wrote of the ' congenial inactivity of 
 the Conservatives.' The history of the work done by this 
 Government makes it impossible for the wildest wire-puller of 
 the Radicals to impute to it, or to its followers, ' inactivity.' 
 In six years that Government has given a prosperous and
 
 88 Six Years of Unionist Government 
 
 progressive period to British history. It found Ireland dis- 
 orderly and lawless. It left her tranquil and law-abiding. It 
 found us on uneasy terms with European Powers, holding a 
 distressed Egypt on a precarious tenure. It has left us on 
 friendly terms with every foreign Power, with Egypt growing 
 year by year in prosperity owing to British administration. 
 India has been protected. Possible difficulties with foreign 
 countries in every quarter of the world have been removed. 
 Our Empire has been extended without bloodshed, and 
 with the approval of our neighbouring colonists. At last 
 our Navy has been put in a state of adequate efficiency. At 
 last some security has been given for our food-conveying 
 fleets across the oceans, in the event of war, by some forti- 
 fication of our coaling-stations and mercantile ports. In 
 finance there has been a reduction of the taxation which 
 may be felt by the poor, with a concurrent increase of 
 expenditure, which bestows unequivocal benefits on the 
 nation at large. In legislation ; by the extension of popular 
 local government ; by aids to an increase of allotments and 
 small holdings ; by encouragement of education, and the 
 promotion of the various forms of legislation which were 
 intended to improve the public health and increase the 
 comfort of the poor, the several heads of Government 
 departments for the last six years" have worked with 
 admirable zeal and success. There is no administrative 
 blunder to be recollected with regret. There is no gross 
 jobbery to be remembered with shame. The Government, 
 since the retirement of Lord Randolph Churchill, has shed 
 no living member. We, who have been glad to support 
 Unionist principles through six years of unscrupulous oppo- 
 sition and incessant depreciation, ought to take every 
 opportunity at the conclusion of this Parliament to record 
 our sense of the good practical work which has been done 
 in every quarter of the Empire, and in every department of 
 affairs, by the Government of Lord Salisbury. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.