Anonymous

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued).

The National Prosperity in 1865—Debate on the Malt Tax—Remission of Fire Insurance Duty—Mr. Gladstone's Budget—The Army and Navy Estimates—Academic Discussions of large Questions—Mr. Lowe on Reform—The Union Chargeability Bill—The New Law Courts Bill—Debate on University Tests—The Catholic Oaths Bill—Other Ecclesiastical Discussions—The Edmunds Scandal—The Wilde Scandal—Mr. Ward Hunt's Motion—Lord Westbury resigns—The General Election—Mr. Mill and Mr. Gladstone—Result of the Polls—Fictitious Prosperity of Trade—The Rinderpest—Suggestions of the Commissioners—Inaction of the Government—Spread of the Disease—The Fenian Conspiracy—Its Constitution—Lord Wodehouse's Measures—Raid upon the Office of the Irish People—Stephens the Head-Centre—His Arrest and Escape from Richmond Gaol—The Special Commission—Trial of Luby—Documents and Informers—Obituary of the Year—Lord Palmerston and Mr. Cobden.

WHEN Parliament met for the Session of 1865 the Lord Chancellor truly described in a few words the state of Great Britain. "Her Majesty," said the Queen's Speech, "commands us to inform you that the general state of the country is satisfactory, and that the revenue realises its estimated amount." In truth, the opening of the year was as calm, both at home and abroad, as could possibly be, excepting the echoes of storm that still continued to be heard in the West. India was prosperous, save for the cyclone that broke over Calcutta a few months before. In one only of the colonies, New Zealand, was anything visibly disturbed, and there the Maori war seemed to have passed its climax. At home, Lancashire distress had abated; the harvest had been good; the public purse was full. Everybody, so far as politics was concerned, was waiting quietly for the dissolution of Parliament, for which, as Lord Derby said, "all its experienced advisers could do was to find it some gentle occupation, and take care that its dying moments were not disturbed by any unnecessary excitement."

In financial matters, before Mr. Gladstone brought forward his Budget, there had been two important debates in the House of Commons which bore upon it. The first was that on a resolution moved by Sir Fitzroy Kelly, afterwards Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, to the effect, "That in any future remission of indirect taxation, this House should take into consideration the duty on malt, with a view to its immediate reduction and ultimate repeal." The malt duty, from which at that time the revenue received six or seven millions sterling a year, had always been more or less of a grievance to the agriculturists; and the representatives of agricultural constituencies were ever ready to argue against it. Sir F. Kelly and his supporters—Sir E. B. Lytton, the novelist, being his seconder—brought forward several plausible arguments for his motion, principally selected or parodied from the grammar of Free Trade. But Mr. Neate, the member for Oxford, always notable in the House for the crotchety cleverness with which he handled questions of political economy, turned the tables upon the landed interest by an amendment. He moved, "That considering the immunities from taxation now enjoyed by the owners and occupiers of land, they are not entitled to any special consideration on account of the pecuniary pressure of the malt tax; and that if, on other grounds, that tax should be reduced or abolished, compensation to the revenue should be sought, in the first instance, by withdrawing from landed property the advantage it now has in the shape of total exemption from probate duty, and partial exemption from succession duty and income tax." This, however, the House of Commons could not stand; it was too much, at least for an unreformed Parliament. The supporters of the Government—especially Mr. Milner Gibson, who was its spokesman—contented themselves with attacking the resolution and left the amendment alone. The question was met on two grounds—first, that the revenue could not afford to do without it; and secondly, that though malt was a raw material, stimulants and their components were fit subjects for taxation. Sir Fitzroy Kelly's motion was rejected, the previous question having been carried by a majority of 251 to 170.

The other point in which it was proposed to give an instruction to the Government as to the disposal of part of the surplus was Mr. R. B. Sheridan's motion for extending last year's remission of the fire insurance duty to "houses, household goods, and all descriptions of insurable property." This resolution was carried by a large majority, though the Chancellor of the Exchequer opposed it, thinking it rash to bind the Government to any special course before the exact surplus was known. The vote secured that Mr. Gladstone should carry out the reduction in question in his Budget. When the day came for the Budget to be presented, Mr. Gladstone found himself, as usual, in the presence of a crowded and eager House. He did not disappoint his hearers. His Budget speech was, in the words of one of his admirers, one of those "deliverances, crammed with arithmetic and argument, epigram and eloquence, figures and fancy," which he and no other Finance Minister that ever lived in England knew well how to give. In this instance Mr. Gladstone had an unusual opportunity for effective display, from the fact of Parliament having arrived at the end of its existence; he had five previous years spread out before him for review, and could strike out brilliant comparisons and draw large inferences at his pleasure. Some of his figures may be given. He said that the actual expenditure of the year that had just elapsed was £65,951,000, a reduction of £1,514,000 upon the first year of that Parliament and that Ministry, and a reduction of £6,547,000 upon the year 1860-61, when the alarms consequent on the Italian War had caused us to spend vast sums upon the army and navy. As to a comparison between revenue and expenditure, he found himself with a surplus in hand of £3,231,000. Customs, Excise, and all other great heads of revenue had given more than their estimated amount, Excise especially yielding a million and a half of increase. The prosperity of the country he tested on an even larger scale than this, by a comparison of annual revenues during the last twenty-five years; and showed that whereas the average growth of the revenue from year to year, from 1840 to 1852, was £1,030,000, the same growth was, from 1853 to 1859, at the rate of £1,240,000, and from 1859 to 1865 at the rate of £1,780,000. The paper trade, in spite of the outcry of the papermakers when he abolished the duty, was increasing, the amount of raw material imported in 1865 being exactly five times what it had been in 1859. The trade with France, thanks to Mr. Cobden's Commercial Treaty, had doubled in five years. The total amount of exports during the year ending September 30, 1864, was £487,000,000, an increase of £219,000,000 since 1854. In other words, the export trade of the country had nearly doubled in ten years. To all this encouraging retrospect Mr. Gladstone added his own gifts for the future. He had a large surplus to dispose of, and what was he to do with it? As he said, there are always "crowds of hungry claimants" for a surplus; everybody who suffers from a tax that his neighbours are exempt from thinks he suffers an injustice and struggles to get it redressed. It is enough to say that the malt tax was not touched; and that the duty on tea was lessened by sixpence per pound, and the income tax lowered from sixpence to fourpence in the pound. It is needless to add that these reductions were received with gladness by the House and the country, though the irrepressible malt tax repealers felt themselves hardly used.

The other two important financial statements were, of course, those made in moving the Army and Navy Estimates. Of neither is there very much that needs to be recorded. The Marquis of Hartington showed great clearness of head and general administrative ability in moving the Army Estimates; but he had little to say except to move for a reduction of 4,000 men in the establishment. The alarm of 1860 had passed away, and the alarm of 1870 had not come; so there was neither increase nor re-organisation to be accomplished. The only difficulty with which Lord Hartington had to deal was the everlasting gun question, new phases of which were always demanding full consideration. Similarly with the navy, for which a little over ten millions were voted, there was to be a reduction, especially in the coastguard and marines; and fresh ships were also to be built on fresh models. Lord Clarence Paget, who moved the Estimates, pronounced himself satisfied with the efficiency and discipline of the service; and the House generally agreed with him.

Turning from finance to the other departments of public business, one is not surprised to find that in the last Session of an old Parliament, with Lord Palmerston still living and directing its course, but little positive legislation was accomplished. An expiring Parliament is never fertile: it produces infant measures, but has not the force to bring them to maturity; and in the consciousness of approaching death, it makes its peace with the future by recording good resolutions. Lord Palmerston, too, in the last year of his life, showed no intention of departing from his well-known home policy—namely, to let things be ever doing, never done. Thus it happens that the history of the Session of 1865 reads like a table of contents of the five or six Sessions that followed it. Almost all the important questions that were afterwards solved, or at least handled, by the Government of Mr. Gladstone, were brought forward, discussed, and left unanswered in 1865. The Irish land question was touched upon, in a debate on a motion of Mr. Pope Hennessy, at the beginning of the Session, and discussed at length on Mr. Maguire's moving, on March 31st, for a select committee. The Irish Church question was raised by Mr. Dillwyn, and the debate which followed was remarkable as extracting from Mr. Gladstone a clear statement of the views that he afterwards put into effect. Mr. Berkeley brought forward his Ballot Bill, but in vain. The Test question was raised by Mr. Goschen. National Education, both in England and Ireland, was before the House of Commons in two important debates. The O'Donoghue moved an Address to the Crown referring to the question of University Education for Ireland. And lastly, Mr. Baines took the feeling of the House on the question, soon to become all-important, of Parliamentary Reform. Besides these, which may be called premonitory symptoms of future legislation, there was, of course, a good deal of important but unpretending work accomplished, which we may shortly record. But first it will be worth while to dwell for a moment upon one of the abortive measures, that of Mr. Baines, the highly respected member for Leeds.

CONFEDERATE RAID INTO VERMONT. (See p. 362.)

The main object of Mr. Baines' Bill was substantially the same as that of the Government Bill of the next year—namely, to reduce the limit of the borough franchise from a rental of £10 per annum, where it had been fixed by the Reform Bill of 1832, to a rental of £6. The measure was, as we said, abortive; its introduction seems indeed to have been only intended to stimulate popular interest in the question of Reform; but the debate has become historical from the great speech in which Mr. Robert Lowe, member for Calne, in Wiltshire, passed at once and beyond all question from the second to the front rank of Parliamentary orators. Mr. Lowe had chosen his opportunity well. In proportion to the popular interest in the question, in proportion to the shortness of its own remaining life, was the dislike of the existing House of Commons to the very name of Reform. Hence from the Whig as well as from the Conservative benches—from all, in fact, except the benches below the gangway on the Liberal side—the cheers rang out as Mr. Lowe, the most impartial of cynics, the narrowest of utilitarians, a Liberal without enthusiasm, a Tory without prejudices, delivered the first of his famous philippics against the democracy of the future. The line of argument that he adopted was, first, to show the vanity of any assumption of an abstract right of all men to have a share in their own government—in other words, to establish one standard by which questions of this kind were to be judged, namely, the standard of public utility; and next, to show that in this case public utility demanded that the qualifications for the franchise should remain as they were. "If these abstract rights to a vote exist," said Mr. Lowe, "they are as much the property of the Australian savage and the Hottentot of the Cape as of the educated and refined Englishman. Those abstract rights are constantly invoked for the destruction of society and the overthrow of government, but they can never be successfully invoked as a foundation upon which government may securely rest." This kind of protest against the doctrine of "abstract rights" was followed by a series of illustrations, immensely relished by the House, of the evils of democracy in other countries and of the ruin it would bring upon England. Mr. Lowe attacked in turn "the sentimental argument," "the fatalistic argument," and "the argument of necessity;" denying that the franchise, when made cheap and vulgar, would elevate the working classes; denying that sooner or later the upper class would have to give way; and denying that the working classes were "thundering at the gates" of the upper class and demanding admission with dangerous noise. The rest of the debate is not specially memorable. Sir George Grey, speaking from the Treasury bench, expressed the feelings of the Whigs when he declared, almost in so many words, that the Government had not made up its mind and when he implied that he at least approached the whole question with reluctance.

But, as we said above, not all the measures proposed in this Session failed to be carried; one at least of great practical importance became law. This was the Union Chargeability Bill, brought in by Mr. Villiers, the President of the Poor Law Board. The object of this Bill was to improve still further the working of the new Poor Law of 1834. The principles of the law were, that while all necessitous persons had a claim to relief, this relief was only to be given on conditions—namely, in the case of the able-bodied, in exchange for labour, and this labour to be given, not at the pauper's own home, but in the workhouse. The increased importance of workhouses led to their being consolidated. Instead of a separate and, probably, ill-appointed house in each parish, a large and well-appointed house was established for Unions of parishes, and these were to be under the control of properly elected guardians and of a central office. It appeared from Mr. Villiers that, however well this system had worked in general, much inequality was caused by the overburdening of some parishes, and the inducement which the landowners and occupiers in some others had to drive away the poor. Hence followed a capricious distribution of the burden of the rates. Mr. Villiers proposed the simple plan—a plan, however, strongly opposed by the strenuous defenders of the strict parochial system—that the Union fund should for the future have to support all the poor within the Union, so that where its administration reached its charges should reach too. This very simple and just measure, denounced by some and applauded by others as the first step towards a system of national rating, was a good deal opposed by members of the Conservative party, but was finally carried both through the Commons and the Lords by considerable majorities. Mr. Villiers acknowledged that he proposed it as an instalment towards the removal of "settlement" altogether—that is, towards allowing a pauper to claim to be taken in to any workhouse, no matter what his domicile or "settlement" might be. Few other measures of importance passed into law during this Session. One at least, however, was important enough: this was the Bill for the concentration of the courts of justice into one great building, the site indicated by the promoters being either one on the Thames Embankment, near the Temple, or the space of ground between the Strand and Lincoln's Inn Fields. The proposal was received with satisfaction by the House, the lawyers, and the country; and every sane man was gratified at the thought that English law would be at last administered in courts that were properly built and decently ventilated. Only a few objectors, led by Lord St. Leonards, found fault with the proposal for paying the cost of the building out of the accumulated "Suitors' Fund" in Chancery. It was thought, however, that the great public convenience to be gained amply justified the wrong done to purely imaginary sufferers. The Bill was passed, and, as all Londoners know, the Carey Street site, between the Strand and Lincoln's Inn, was decided upon. But, as is equally well known, beyond choosing the site and demolishing the houses upon it, and selecting a plan to be modified periodically, nothing was done for many years. In due course, however, the Royal Palace of Justice was completed and opened in November, 1882. Greenwich Hospital was also reformed in this Session. A Public Schools Bill was brought forward, but postponed.

This year was a quiet one in the religious world. In the course of it several interesting measures relating to religious tests and subscriptions were brought into Parliament; and though in the end little or nothing was done towards a practical settlement of the questions raised, still public attention was kept alive to them and to the importance of the convictions and feelings at issue. Thus regarded, as steps in an inevitable road, even abortive Reform Bills and Tests Bills lost in the Commons have a lasting interest and value. The University Tests Bill of 1865 was introduced by Mr. Goschen, then one of the members for the City of London, and the motion for the second reading was seconded by Mr. Grant Duff. The Bill, said Mr. Goschen, did not propose to admit Dissenters to the governing body of the University, although it might lead to that result eventually, but to enable degrees to be conferred without reference to religious tests. It would also go beyond the Cambridge Act and give a vote in Convocation; whilst it would admit to certain privileges and emoluments, to obtain which under the present system the degree of Master of Arts was an essential qualification. He could not believe that these concessions would lower the tone or impair the prestige of Oxford. So far from injuring the University, they would rather widen its basis and make it more useful and acceptable to the country, for he was convinced that no system could flourish that practically excluded one half the population from their traditional seat of learning. In a short effective speech Mr. Grant Duff gave three reasons for his support of the Bill: (1) That it would be beneficial rather than hurtful to the Church; (2) that it was an act of simple justice to the Dissenters, who had been from the beginning of their history altogether excluded from the higher education of England; (3) that it would be useful to the University, by enabling it to understand more fully its duties to the nation and the proper scope of its influence and training. But the time was not yet come for the admission of the principle upon which these arguments were based. Lord Cranborne and Mr. Gladstone, alarmed by certain conclusions advanced in Mr. Goschen's speech and persuaded that the effect of the Bill would be to give over the government of the University to Dissenters, offered a warm opposition to it. The promoters of the Bill, said Mr. Gladstone, openly avowed their desire to separate education from religion, and that was a principle to which he was resolutely opposed. Mr. Gathorne Hardy and Mr. Henley followed suit. Finally, Lord Cranborne's amendment—that the Bill should be adjourned for six months—was negatived by 206 votes to 190. But it was felt that with so small a majority it was useless to push the Bill any farther. If such was the temper of the Commons it was well known that the Lords would make short work of it and the measure was temporarily abandoned.

The Roman Catholic Oaths Bill again brought forward the subject of religious tests, only, however, to afford another triumph to religious conservatism. The object of Mr. Monsell, its introducer, was to alter the form of the oath required from Roman Catholic members of Parliament under the Relief Act of 1829, and to substitute for it the simple oath of the Queen's supremacy. The oath as administered under that Act required a Roman Catholic member to swear that he renounced, rejected, and abjured the doctrine that princes excommunicated or deposed by the Pope or any authority of the See of Rome might be deposed or murdered by their subjects or by any person whatever; that he disclaimed, disavowed, and abjured any intention to subvert the Established Church; and that he would never disturb or weaken the Protestant religion, or the Protestant Government in the United Kingdom. Such an oath, it was argued, was not an anachronism; it was a grievance and a degradation. The oath was, indeed, a remnant of the state of things before Catholic Emancipation, and there could be no doubt that the just and liberal course would have been to oblige all members of Parliament, without exception or variation, to take a uniform oath. A strong and finally successful opposition, however, was advanced. Mr. Whalley's and Mr. Newdegate's Protestant consciences took the alarm; "in the interests of social and political order and the peace of families," they felt themselves bound to resist the measure. Sir George Grey, who supported the Bill, was taunted with his Ultramontane leanings; and, according to Mr. Whiteside, the proposed change affected the Constitution, the Church, and the property of the country! However, by the help of Government support, given, said the Opposition, from electioneering motives, the Bill was read a second time and successfully maintained in committee. Substantially unaltered, it was sent up to the Lords, where, however, a night's debate disposed of it. Lord Derby made a long and powerful speech, appealing to every Tory cry and every Tory prejudice, till the measure assumed such formidable proportions that it frightened even its supporters. Lord Harrowby, Lord Chelmsford, and others followed suit, and, in spite of the efforts on the Liberal side, the Bill was lost on division by twenty-one votes.

A word of notice is called for by some other Parliamentary discussions that took place this year on ecclesiastical matters; but as none led to any practical result, they may be dismissed with a word. Mr. Dillwyn's motion about the Irish Church has been already mentioned; it called forth, as we have said, an emphatic declaration from Mr. Gladstone, and to that declaration is to be traced, in a great measure, his rejection by Oxford University. Mr. Newdegate attempted, but without success, to substitute a rate of twopence in the pound on real property for the existing Church rates. In the House of Lords Lord Lyttelton, with the approval of most of the Bishops, proposed a resolution in favour of an increase of the Episcopate—a subject always dear to the High Church party, but considered by the Evangelical party to be of less importance than a development of the parochial system. The dioceses of Exeter, Winchester, and London were pointed to as those that ought to be relieved by the creation of new bishoprics. The resolution, however, was not put to the vote, nor had it any legislative result.

The end of the Session of 1865 was troubled by certain transactions that caused great tribulation to the Government of Lord Palmerston and proved fatal to the career of one of the highest officers of State. These transactions are commonly grouped together under the name of "the Edmunds scandal." The case of Mr. Edmunds was as follows:—In 1833 Lord Brougham, at that time Lord Chancellor, had appointed Mr. Leonard Edmunds to the post of Clerk of the Patents, at the salary of £400 a year, afterwards increased to £600. In 1854 a quarrel took place between Mr. Edmunds and Mr. Woodcroft, also an official of the Patent Office, and each charged the other with irregularities, mismanagement, or worse. Two lawyers of position—Mr. Hindmarch and Mr. Greenwood, both Queen's Counsel—were appointed to make a full inquiry into the cross-accusations; and their finding was adverse to Mr. Edmunds. The authorities, however, were lenient enough to allow him to resign, on his repaying the sums due to the Treasury. Then arose the question which brought Lord Chancellor Westbury into his unfortunate position. Mr. Edmunds, as well as being clerk in the Patent Office, was clerk in the House of Lords; and it was to his evident interest to resign that post before rumours of his troubles in his other office should reach the ears of the Parliament Office Committee and defeat his chance of a pension. Accordingly the Lord Chancellor himself presented Mr. Edmunds' petition; himself moved that the resignation should be accepted and that the question of pension should be referred to a select committee, of which he was to be one; and this without one word of reference to the grave charges hanging over the head of Mr. Edmunds. The select committee was appointed and recommended to the House that a pension of £800 a year should be conferred on Mr. Edmunds; and this recommendation the House adopted. Meanwhile, the Lord Chancellor appointed his son, the Honourable Slingsby Bethell, to the post in the House of Lords vacated by Mr. Edmunds. Before long, however, the floating rumours about Mr. Edmunds' conduct in the Patent Office had caught the public attention, and Lord Stanley expressed the general uneasiness about the affair in some questions that he addressed to the Attorney-General in the House of Commons. Next night the Lord Chancellor himself took up the matter and, courting inquiry, moved for the appointment of a select committee to examine all the circumstances. The committee sat; reported that the charges against Mr. Edmunds were fully proved by evidence; and, by a majority of one, gave it as their opinion that the Lord Chancellor had failed in his duty when he presented Mr. Edmunds' petition without informing the committee of the facts of the case. But, by way of softening their censure, the select committee added, "that they had no reason to believe that the Lord Chancellor was influenced by any unworthy or unbecoming motives in thus abstaining from giving any information to the before-mentioned committee."

THE FOREIGN OFFICE, LONDON, FROM ST. JAMES'S PARK.

Upon this, the House revoked Mr. Edmunds' pension and there apparently the matter ended. The committee had not condemned the Lord Chancellor; his position remained as before; and yet everybody felt uncomfortable. Hence it was in no lenient mind that the public heard rumours of a fresh scandal, touching the Lord Chancellor still more nearly, in the matter of certain appointments in the Leeds Bankruptcy Court, which Mr. Ferrand brought before the House. The appointment of a select committee followed, and five members were chosen, with Mr. Howes for chairman, to inquire into the whole affair. The result of their investigations, during which all the persons concerned, including the Lord Chancellor, were examined, was to bring to light a most lamentable state of things, the principal facts being the following:—Mr. Wilde, the Registrar of the Leeds Court of Bankruptcy, had been charged, in the year 1864, with improperly passing the accounts of his subordinates, and with borrowing money of them "to the destruction of his independence and efficiency." The Lord Chancellor, through Mr. Miller, the Chief Registrar, called upon him, in May, 1864, to explain the charges; but apparently no satisfactory explanation was forthcoming, for, on the 26th of June, Mr. Miller, by order of the Chancellor, wrote to Mr. Wilde, offering him in a peremptory way the option of resignation, or of appearing in open court to show cause why he should not be dismissed. But Mr. Miller added, without the Chancellor's authorisation, that if Mr. Wilde chose to resign upon a medical certificate, he might perhaps claim a pension; and he took the hint. Mr. Wilde was allowed to retire on a pension, and Mr. Welch was appointed by Lord Westbury to the office he had resigned. Now Mr. Welch was a friend of Mr. Richard Bethell; he was a barrister on the Northern Circuit, and he had money; Mr. Bethell, on the other hand, had, in the month of May, been compelled by his father to resign his post as Registrar in Bankruptcy on account of debt, and money was of importance to him. Here came the scandal. A certain Reverend George Harding gave his evidence before the committee to the effect that, in May, 1864, an arrangement had been made between himself, Mr. Welch, and Mr. Richard Bethell, of the following nature. Mr. Welch was to give Mr. Bethell £500 for his good influences with his father, the Lord Chancellor, and a further £1,000 on receipt of an appointment, one-third of this latter sum to go to Mr. Harding as his share in the transaction. In February, 1865, after Mr. Bethell had been for some time abroad, his claims for a new office were pressed on the Chancellor by Mr. Miller; and hopes were held out that Mr. Welch might be transferred to London, and Mr. Bethell appointed to Leeds. Presuming on this, he went down to Leeds on the 24th, and talked to the officials as if the arrangements were concluded, but meanwhile the Lord Chancellor had changed his mind, and did not appoint his son. The report of the select committee acquitted the Lord Chancellor "from all charge except that of haste and want of caution in granting a pension to Mr. Wilde;" but it went on to say that the inquiry had been a most necessary one. The newspapers were immediately filled with criticisms of the Chancellor's conduct; but Parliament was just about to be prorogued and it was generally supposed that he was to be left free from authoritative censure. But just before the prorogation a motion on the matter was put on the notice-book of the House of Commons by Mr. Ward Hunt, member for Northamptonshire, and afterwards Mr. Disraeli's Chancellor of the Exchequer. He proposed that the Lord Chancellor should be compelled to resign; and a lively debate ensued on the question whether, on the one side, scandalous blunders in the matter of patronage were to be held a capital offence, or whether, on the other side, the blunders were to be held venial and condoned by a comparison of them with the Chancellor's services and successes. The debate ended in the adoption, after the Government had been defeated on the question of adjournment, by a majority of 14 in a House of 340, of an amendment, proposed by Mr. Bouverie, substantially the original vote of censure clothed in milder terms. The next day Lord Westbury resigned, and on the day after made a farewell statement in the House of Lords—a statement in which a genuine contempt for the majority which had condemned him was veiled by language of the most respectful submission. He passed from the Woolsack, to be succeeded by Lord Cranworth, Chancellor for the second time; and the public career of one of the greatest of law reformers closed in disgrace.

A scandal of this kind was by no means a pleasant end to the life of a Parliament, and for the Government by no means a pleasant prelude to a general election. But it cannot be said that public feeling was very deeply or very generally stirred. There was no question of deciding upon the life or death of a Ministry; it was a "natural dissolution;" Parliament had died of old age, and not by the violent hands of a defeated Minister. So most of the constituencies fought out their battles quietly and uneventfully; the Liberals making Reform their war cry, and the Conservatives making answer that Reform was neither necessary nor expedient. It was generally expected that Lord Palmerston's Government would have a considerable majority. Only two contests were looked upon with a very high degree of interest—that for the University of Oxford, where Mr. Gladstone was opposed by Mr. Gathorne Hardy; and that for Westminster, where Mr. John Stuart Mill came forward as a candidate. It was almost the first time, perhaps the very first time, in English history that a philosophical and economical writer of the first rank had come forward to ask for the vote of a constituency solely on the ground of his writings. A large committee was formed, including most of the leading Liberal names in England, to carry him into Parliament at no expense to himself. The exertions of his admirers, the novelty of the experience, and the influence of Mr. Mill's own dignified presence, seen as it was by so many for the first time, carried him to his seat. But enthusiasm for an idea does not hold its ground for very long in England, and thus it came to pass that at the general election of 1868 Mr. Mill was sent back again to private life.

The other election which concentrated public attention was that for the Oxford University. Mr. Gladstone had represented that exceptional constituency for eighteen years, though many attempts had been made to remove him from his seat, as from time to time his opinions showed fresh divergence from those of his youth. On this occasion a powerful opponent was brought forward in Mr. Gathorne Hardy, one of the most influential members of the Conservative party. The constituency of the University was composed of the members of its Convocation—that is, of all persons who had taken a degree not lower than that of Master of Arts, and who retained their names on the register by certain payments. In this election, for the first time, it was legal to use voting-papers, which enabled members to vote without coming up to Oxford to record their votes in person. This provision, passed only in the last Parliament, was fatal to Mr. Gladstone. His Liberalism, supposed to be extreme, and believed to favour views not wholly adverse to the disestablishment of State Churches, cost him his seat. He was beaten by Mr. Hardy by a majority of 180, the numbers being—Hardy 1,904, Gladstone 1,724. Mr. Gladstone took his farewell of the University in an address that expressed his "profound and lasting gratitude" for its support during the "arduous connection of eighteen years." The very night of his defeat, he owned, in the Liverpool Amphitheatre, that he had "clung to the representation of the University with desperate fondness." That day, the 18th of July, was typical of the whole of his life. He stood, to use words of his own, between the "ancient, great, and venerable University" and the "hives of teeming enterprise." He went from Oxford to South Lancashire, and after a campaign of magnificent speech-making, was returned by a narrow majority. We shall have to record, in the history of the next election, his subsequent loss of the same seat; but that loss mattered comparatively little. The real turning-point in his political career, and in the history of his party, was his rejection for Oxford University. From that moment he was, politically speaking, another man.

The total result of the elections was the return of 367 Liberals and 290 Conservatives—a gain of nearly fifty votes to the former party. It will be seen, however, that a large number of those who described themselves as Liberals soon showed their dissent from the policy of the Liberal Government; so that the majority was in reality very much smaller than might have been supposed. The political history of the year ends with the elections. From July to December political passions slept, political voices were dumb; only the Cabinet were at work on the questions of the next year—questions which, after Lord Palmerston's death, became more pressing and important.

Trade and finance were prosperous during this year, though the cotton market had not quite recovered from the shock of the American War. It had, however, partially recovered; and to the manner of its recovery, indeed, is to be indirectly traced much of the disastrous panic of 1866. The history of that panic will be told in a future chapter; at present we may remark that the stoppage of the American supplies caused first of all a stoppage, more or less complete, of English trade; that a new cotton supply was looked for from India, and that hence new and various channels were opened for trade; that thus arose all kinds of feverish, unsteady, and unwise speculation, the newspapers being crowded with daily advertisements of new enterprises, many of them on a gigantic scale. For this year, all went well. Two hundred and eighty-seven new "Limited Liability" companies were started, embracing every kind of undertaking, from the negotiation of foreign loans to the manufacture of an improved blacking. Everybody turned investor. The price of Consols went down from 91³/8 in April to 86³/4 in December, showing that where so many profitable investments were open, people would not buy stock which would pay them only three per cent. In a word, everything looked well, and every one was busy; the crash was as yet far distant, and all had their fortunes to make.

The general prosperity of the country received, however, a severe blow in the outbreak of the cattle plague, which first appeared in June in this year; but by the end of December had carried off more than forty thousand head of cattle. The disease, which was in a high degree contagious, was that known in Germany under the name of Rinderpest; and all that was ascertained of its origin is told in the admirable First Report of the Royal Commissioners (Lord Cranborne, Mr. Lowe, Dr. Lyon Playfair, and several others) who were appointed to investigate it. Two English cows, says the report, were purchased at the Islington Cattle Market on the 19th of June, and on the 27th a veterinary surgeon first noticed symptoms of disease in them. They were in the shed of the cowkeeper who had bought them. Two Dutch cows, bought at the same time and place, were also taken with the disease in another shed. Immediately afterwards, the plague—for it had become a plague—broke out in numerous London sheds, and spread very fast and very destructively. The Islington cowkeeper lost her whole herd, ninety-three in number. In a very few weeks the disease had passed out of London to nearly every county in England, and even to Scotland. It had gone across the sea to Holland with some Dutch oxen that had been sent for sale to the London market, but which were sent back again, because they could not be sold at a remunerative price. Now, among the foreign cattle that had been sold in the Metropolitan Cattle Market about this time were some oxen from Revel on the Baltic; and it was shown that some of these were ill at the time of their landing with what afterwards proved to be the disease. But this, though not improbable in itself, was considered by the Commissioners to be not proved; and they left it an open question whether the plague had been imported this way or vi Holland. Anyhow there was and is little doubt that the original home of the disease is the steppe country of Southern Russia. Four times at least in previous centuries had the plague, or one very similar to it, appeared in England; the last attack—which continued for the twelve years from 1745 to 1757, carrying off several hundred thousand cattle—formed a precedent of great value for the guidance of the authorities in the present visitation.

The Commissioners found the only regulations in force to be certain Orders in Council, published as a Consolidated Order in September, 1865, under the authority of an Act of Parliament originally passed in 1848, which gave to orders of the kind the force of law. This Consolidated Order appointed inspectors, or caused them to be appointed by the local authorities, gave these inspectors full power to enter any shed, etc., and then and there destroy any infected animal; and made strict regulations forbidding the transit of diseased animals, and closing the Metropolitan Cattle Market, "except for purposes of immediate slaughter." This order, as the Commissioners said, was good but insufficient. The report told the country plainly that difficulties and sacrifices must be expected; that London must import her meat dead and not alive; that the only way to get rid of the disease quickly was to prevent the movement of cattle absolutely. But at the same time such a prohibition would have been a very serious step; it would have caused a sudden and alarming interruption in trade and would probably have led to an evasion of the law. Hence the Commissioners—though a majority of them ventured to recommend the total stoppage of all movement of cattle as the best course—advised certain alternative measures in case the difficulties of that course should be found too great. These alternative recommendations forbade the transit of lean or store stock, and imposed strict regulations on the movements of fat stock for slaughter. The report also suggested great restrictions on the importation of foreign cattle; such as that they should only be allowed to land at certain ports, that the fat stock should be immediately slaughtered, and that various forms of quarantine should be imposed upon the stock not immediately meant for the butcher. For Ireland, where the disease had not appeared, the Commissioners urged the extreme importance of being prepared in case it should appear, and of being ready and able to stamp it out.

These recommendations were, of course, open to the objection that the measures they pointed to were centralising, imperial—in other words, un-English. It was in vain that it was answered that it was the disease which was un-English; that it was against the disease that the objection lay and not against the recommendations. Lord Russell's Government knew that the very breath of an Englishman's life is the liberty "to do what he likes with his own." So the Ministry did what commended it to the people, and what did less than nothing to check the disease. It "empowered the local authorities." It gave to mayors of boroughs and to the county quarter sessions certain powers, apparently extensive, really very limited, towards hindering the plague. It did not even empower the justices in quarter sessions to prevent the movement of sheep, or pigs, or goats from place to place within their jurisdiction. The result was, that the tradition of English liberty was preserved, and that the disease spread like wild-fire. The first report of the Commissioners was dated October 31, 1865; the orders followed very soon; and yet the number of animals attacked, which had been 11,300 up to October 7, increased by January 27 to 120,740. To mark the mortality from the disease it may be observed that of these hundred and twenty thousand, only 14,162 are known to have recovered. Although the fear of approaching contagion drove the farmers to send unusually large numbers of cattle for slaughter—and, therefore, the supply, instead of falling off, increased—the price of meat rose enormously. Instead of eightpence or ninepence, tenpence or a shilling became the common price for a pound of meat. With this increase came a corresponding and more justifiable rise in the price of milk, especially in London. The 7,000 cattle that had been attacked in the London district up to the end of the year were almost entirely milch-cows. Of course, an immediate rise in the price of milk followed and a dislocation of the London milk trade. The dairymen became importers instead of producers. The railways began to develop new facilities for the carriage of milk from the country into London; and then were first to be noticed on a large scale, trucks loaded with great broad-bottomed cans bringing up the produce of the country meadows for the use of the metropolis. No disinterested person can regret this at least among the results of the plague.

Among the results of the American War, that which came home most rapidly and strikingly to the English mind was the organisation of the Fenian Conspiracy. Every American knows well the extent of the "Irish element" in the United States. The end of the war threw hundreds of Irishmen out of work. It mattered little whether they had fought for North or South; hatred of "the Saxon," and the chance of making a display in the cause of Erin, were strong bonds of union. Hence arose the Fenian Brotherhood—a military conspiracy, with civil branches, having for its object "the overthrow of the Queen's government in Ireland, and the establishment of the Irish Republic." No one seems to know certainly the origin of the name "Fenian;" but it is probably derived from "Fianna," the ancient Irish militia. At all events, the name of the organisation was suggested by John O'Mahony, of New York, a Celtic scholar of some repute, who had to fly from Ireland, with his life in his hands, in "'48," for an abortive attempt to excite the Tipperary peasantry to armed resistance. "There is no time to be lost," wrote one of the leaders (John O'Leary, afterwards editor of The Irish People); "this year—and let there be no mistake about it—must be the year of action.... The flag of Ireland, of the Irish Republic, must this year be raised." "I was told," said a witness at one of the Fenian trials, "that arms were to be given to carry out those objects.... They told me that the Fenians in Ireland were to be officered by French officers; and since the war was over in America, that they were to be officered by Federal officers." Again a Thomas Mooney wrote, "We have an Irish leader in John O'Mahony, backed by 50,000 veteran Irish soldiers in America ready for the word." These are a few indications, taken at random from many documents that were produced at the trials of various prisoners.

In the possession of one of the convicted prisoners, by name Moore, a blacksmith, was found a pamphlet containing the rules and by-laws of the Fenian Brotherhood, from which the following passages are extracted. They are sufficient to show that the abortive Fenian movement was a thing that had been undertaken in earnest by serious men.

"CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS.

"1. The Fenian Brotherhood.—The Fenian Brotherhood is a distinct and independent organisation. It is composed, in the first place, of citizens of the United States of America, of Irish birth and lineage; and in the second place, of Irishmen, and of friends of Ireland, living elsewhere on the American continent, and in the provinces of the British Empire wherever situated. Its headquarters are, and shall be, within the limits of the United States of America. Its members are bound together by the following general pledge:—

"2. General Pledge.—I [...] solemnly pledge my sacred word of honour as a truthful and honest man, that I will labour with earnest zeal for the liberation of Ireland from the yoke of England, and for the establishment of a free and independent Government on the Irish soil; that I will implicitly obey the commands of my superior officers in the Fenian Brotherhood; that I will faithfully discharge my duties of membership as laid down in the constitution and by-laws thereof; that I will do my utmost to promote feelings of love, harmony, and kindly forbearance among all Irishmen; and that I will foster, defend, and propagate the aforesaid Fenian Brotherhood to the utmost of my power.

"3. Form of Organisation.—The Fenian Brotherhood shall be subdivided into state organisations, circles, and sub-circles. It shall be directed and governed by a Head Centre, to direct the whole organisation; State Centres, to direct state organisations; Centres, to direct circles; and Sub-Centres to direct sub-circles. The Head Centre shall be assisted by a central council of five; by a Central Treasurer, and Assistant Treasurer; by a Central Corresponding Secretary, and a Central Recording Secretary; and by such intermediate officers as the Head Centre may from time to time deem necessary for the efficient working of the organisation.

"4. The Head Centre shall be elected annually by a general congress of representatives of the Fenian Brotherhood, which congress shall be composed of the State Centres and the Centres, together with elected delegates from the several circles of the organisation—each circle in good standing being entitled to elect one delegate."

This document is sufficient to show the kind of organisation and the nature of the designs of the brotherhood. Although a prosecution had been resolved upon before it came into the hands of the authorities, enough was known to make severe measures not only justifiable, but necessary, if Ireland was to be saved from civil war. Lord Wodehouse (afterwards created Earl of Kimberley) was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland at the time, and the credit or responsibility of most of the measures taken rests with him. The blow of authority first fell on the press. A paper called The Irish People had for some time been published in Dublin and widely circulated, which made no secret that its design was to incite the people of Ireland to insurrection and to a forcible severance of the union with England. A Privy Council was held at the Castle on the evening of the 15th of September; Mr. Stronge, the Chief Magistrate, was instructed to draw out warrants; a strong body of police was told off for sudden duty. The warrants were given to the police and they were marched to Parliament Street to the office of The Irish People. Ten persons were arrested in the house, the principal of whom was O'Donovan Rossa; and an immense amount of letters, printed papers, type, and numerous important lists of Fenians were seized and carried off to the Castle yard. Very little disturbance and absolutely no resistance ensued. Nor was any greater difficulty encountered by the Cork police, who made a descent upon the Fenians in that city at the same time. Indeed, the Irish police in general showed themselves very active at this juncture and many of the southern towns were the scene of interesting captures. Each important arrest led to more, or gave a direction to the search, from the discovery of papers compromising other people. One person, for instance, who gave his name as Charles O'Connell, but whose real name was Rafferty, was arrested as he entered Queenstown harbour in a steamer from New York. He had been an American captain and his papers gave an illustration of the aid which Fenian agents had received from officers of high rank on the Federal side.

There were at this time two Head Centres—one in the United States (John O'Mahony), and one in Ireland (James Stephens). This latter—a personage of the highest importance in the brotherhood—was known under many names; his commonest designations being "J. Powell," and "James Stephens;" though he occupied his comfortable house in the neighbourhood of Dublin under the name of James Corbett. Stephens, it ought to be related, had passed three years in the country previous to the establishment of The Irish People. He had traversed and re-traversed the country in a variety of disguises and under a cloud of aliases, sounding the peasantry as to their readiness for rebellion and succeeding even in corrupting the loyalty of small portions of the Irish regiments. He went so far as to try his capacity for "organisation" by making overtures to the Orangemen of the North, but his advances were coldly repelled. The movement, however, was doomed to failure almost from its inception. When the long-threatened blow was on the eve of being struck, discontent broke out amongst the rank and file of the insurrectionary battalions. Hundreds of men who had worn the American uniform were starving in the garrets and kennels of Dublin and London; whilst the great Head Centre and financial fountain himself was living in an extravagant manner. Disgusted at their treatment, about fifty of the immigrants proposed to end the matter promptly by shooting him and precipitating a rebellion on their own responsibility. Stephens was warned of the plot and took steps to pacify his infuriated subordinates. He distributed money amongst them freely and to this sudden outburst of judicious liberality he probably owed his life. This generosity came too late, for America unexpectedly ceased to send supplies and the old murmurings broke out again with redoubled vehemence. This it was that broke the back-bone of the conspiracy and saved Ireland from the horrors of civil war. The police discovered that this James Corbett was the man they were in search of and accordingly surrounded his house early one morning. They met with little resistance, though Stephens and his friends were well supplied with arms. In the same house with Stephens three other prominent Fenians were arrested, one of them being the "Charles J. Kickham" who had been looked for ever since the razzia upon The Irish People newspaper. When the prisoners were brought up for examination, Stephens protested most indignantly against the very existence of the law under which he was to be tried; he refused to take measures for his defence and defied punishment. As it happened, and as perhaps he had guessed beforehand, he never came in want of legal assistance or in danger of punishment. "Bolts and bars could not hold him." He escaped from Richmond Bridewell on the night of November 24, and no amount of police activity or Government reward could secure his recapture. The naked truth is, that at a meeting of the Fenian Secret Council, held in Townsend Street, in Dublin, on the morning of November 22, it was decided to spend £250 in rescuing the imprisoned chief. The service had been offered, the reward was punctually paid, and the "General," as his followers called him, was rescued from his gaolers. It was plainly impossible that an escape of the kind, managed simply by unlocking seven of the prison doors one after another, could have been effected without collusion with some official or other. So Government thought, and suspended the governor of the gaol, and got Byrne, the turnkey, committed for trial. But Stephens never came back. It was not without reason that he had defied English punishments.

But even though the Head Centre was lost, there were enough prisoners in hand to make it necessary to try them by means of a Special Commission. In this case the judges were Baron Fitzgerald and Justice Keogh—both of them men of marked ability and neither likely to act with much leniency towards convicted political prisoners. Their work lasted more than a fortnight in Dublin; then they went to Cork; and then again returned to Dublin, where it was several weeks before the work was over. An example of the mode of trial and of the evidence produced may be found in the case of Thomas Clarke Luby (a man whose father was a Senior Fellow and who was himself a student of Trinity College), which was the first that came before the court. Mr. Luby had been a registered proprietor of The Irish People newspaper, jointly, it appears, with O'Donovan Rossa. Indeed, he was the foremost writer in that paper; to which Stephens, during his entire connection with its personnel, contributed only one sorry article, headed "Isle and Doom." So popular, however, did the journal become amongst the disaffected classes that the older "National" organs had reason to tremble for the security of their existence. Luby was indicted for the crime of treason-felony—a crime newly created by Act of Parliament. According to the Act that creates it, treason-felony may consist of either or all of three offences—compassing or intending to depose the Queen from her Royal authority as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland; intending to levy war against the Queen in order to induce her to change her measures; and conspiring to invite foreigners to invade this realm. It was with these three offences that the prisoner was charged; the Attorney-General for Ireland (Mr. Lawson) prosecuting him and Mr. Butt defending him. The trial seems to have been meant chiefly as an exposure of the nature of the conspiracy and this the evidence certainly effected. Among the documents, perhaps the most important was a letter or commission found in the prisoner's house at the time of his arrest, sealed with black wax and addressed to "Miss Frazer." The police-sergeant who arrested Luby opened this, though he was told it was "a private matter between Mrs. Luby and a lady friend;" and he found it to be the following:—

"I hereby empower Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary, and Charles J. Kickham, a committee of organisation, or executive, with the same supreme control over the home organisation—England, Ireland, and Scotland—that I have exercised myself. I further empower them to appoint a committee of appeal and judgment, the functions of which committee will be made known to every member. Trusting to the patriotism and abilities of the executive, I fully endorse their actions beforehand. I call on every man in our ranks to support and be guided by them in all that concerns the military brotherhood.

"J. Stephens."

Side by side with this document, which, while it incriminated Luby, threw further light upon the proceedings of the Fenians, came the evidence of the two informers, Pierce Nagle and Patrick Power. They were both Fenians; Power at least had taken the Fenian oath, and Nagle "acted as a member of the society, but did not take the oath." Nagle told of meetings of the society, mostly near Clonmel; of intriguing in America, in which he had had a part; of "swearing in" new brethren; and of Luby's complicity with all this. He described the way in which the enumeration of members was managed:—"Papers ruled in squares by means of perpendicular and horizontal lines; the squares did not extend to the top, but there was a blank space on which the name of the captain or B was entered; the squares then showed how the captain, the sergeant or C, and the rank and file or D, were armed, also the strength of the company.... A 'V' signified a man armed with a rifle. If it was an inverted 'V,' it signified a man armed with a gun or pistol. A stroke signified that a man was armed with a pike. Where there was a circle, it signified a man—captain, sergeant, or private—not armed at all." Farther on, Nagle described the mode of enrolling:—"I myself enrolled ten or twelve into the society. The mode of enrolling a member was, in the first instance, to administer the oath, which in substance was, that the party should be a member of the Irish Republic, now virtually established, and should be ready to take up arms at a moment's notice." Again, "Cornelius Dwyer Keane reported to Stephens that there were nearly 500 new men in the neighbourhood of Clonakilty. Stephens said he did not know what he should do with the number of men he had, there were so many of them." Evidence also was given as to the manufacture of arms in Ireland, especially pikes. "Give bearer fifty rods," said a note of the Head Centre; and "rods" was the pleasant alias of the formidable "pikes." Lastly, one more document was read at Luby's trial from the packet addressed to "Miss Frazer." It contained three resolutions, and was signed by the great John O'Mahony himself; the first two being a pledge on the part of the American Fenians to get the Irish Republic recognised by every free Government in the world; and a declaration, "that the national organisation at present existing on Irish soil is almost entirely owing to the devoted patriotism and indomitable perseverance of its Head Centre." What was proved, then, in his trial (for we have given the principal points of the evidence) was the existence of a widespread conspiracy, having its roots in America and having for its object the forcible extinction of British rule in Ireland. Luby, also, was proved to have been a prominent conspirator. He was the first to be found guilty and was sentenced—as were some others after him, though many received less—to the punishment of twenty years' penal servitude.

Perhaps a greater number than usual of distinguished persons died in 1865. The names of Lord Palmerston and Mr. Cobden will occur to every one. Of persons less widely famous, the English army lost one of its patriarchs in Viscount Combermere, and one of its most distinguished officers in General Sir George Brown; science lost Sir William Jackson Hooker; and popular scientific enterprise Sir Joseph Paxton and Sir John Richardson; the Roman Catholics of England lost their Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman; and literature lost its distinguished sons Charles Waterton and Isaac Taylor, and its still more distinguished daughter Mrs. Gaskell. On the afternoon of the 18th of October in this year, the news arrived in London of the death of Lord Palmerston, which had taken place that morning at Brockett Hall, Hertfordshire. Had he lived two days longer, he would have been eighty-one years of age; but for some months the strength of the hale old man had been failing, and for a week it had been pretty well known that the end was near. Lord Palmerston had been for fifty years a personage of such importance in British and even European politics, that his death, however much expected, was deeply felt throughout all classes of English society. All alike regarded it as the end of a political period. What was to follow, some looked on with hope, others with dread, none with indifference. Still his genuine if somewhat cynical patriotism was gratefully remembered. Just six months before his own death, Lord Palmerston rose in Parliament to call attention to "the great loss which the House and the country had sustained in the death of Mr. Cobden." There was something strange and a little jarring in the words of official praise in which the successful veteran spoke of the merits of the simple, unobtrusive, yet greater man that was gone, though he, too, had his limitations. More true, moretouching, were the few sentences in which his friend and brother-worker, Mr. Bright, told of his own sorrow in Cobden's death; and all who read the words the next morning felt a throb of sympathy. "Sir," he said, "I feel I cannot address the House on this occasion, though every expression of sympathy has been most grateful to my heart; but the time which has elapsed since I was present when the manliest and gentlest spirit that ever actuated or tenanted a human form took its flight is so short, that I dare not even attempt to give utterance to the feelings by which I am oppressed. I shall leave it to some calmer moment, when I may have an opportunity of stating to some portion of my countrymen the lesson which I think may be learned from the life and character of my friend. I have only to say now that, after twenty years of the most intimate and the most brotherly friendship with him, I little knew how much I loved him until I found that I had lost him."