(1876—1887)
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 227, col. 95 (Debate on the Address, February, 1876).
Mr. Disraeli: ... When we acceded to office two years ago an International Commission had only just ceased its labours at Constantinople upon the dues of the Suez Canal, and upon the means of ascertaining and maintaining a limit of them, and it had arrived at reasons entirely protested against by the proprietary. What was the state of affairs there? Lord Derby had to deal with them. The proprietary of the canal threatened, and not only threatened, but proceeded, to stop the canal. They refused pilots; they threatened to change the signals; they took steps which would have interrupted that mode of intercourse with India.... From that moment it became a matter of interest to those responsible for the government of this country to see what could be done to remedy those relations with the Suez Canal.... But it suddenly comes to our knowledge that the Khedive, on whose influence we mainly depended, is going to part with his shares. We received a telegram from Cairo informing us that the Khedive was anxious to raise a considerable sum of money upon his shares in the Suez Canal, and offered them to England. We considered the question immediately, and it appeared to us to be a complicated transaction—one to which there were several objections; and we sent back to say that we were favourably disposed to assist the Khedive, but that at the same time we were only prepared to purchase the shares outright. What was the answer? The answer was that the Khedive was resolved, if he possibly could, to keep his shares, and that he could only therefore avail himself of a loan. There matters seemed to end. Then suddenly there came news to the Government of this country that a French society—SociÉtÉ GÉnÉrale—was prepared to offer the Khedive a large sum of money—very little inferior to the four millions—but on very onerous conditions. The Khedive communicated with us, and said that the conditions were so severe that he would sooner sell the shares outright, and—which I had forgotten to mention—that, in deference to his promise that England should always have the refusal of the shares if he decided to sell them, he offered them to the English Government. It was absolutely necessary to decide at that moment what course we should take. It was not a thing on which we could hesitate.... To pretend that Lord Derby has treated this business as a mere commercial speculation is idle. If he did not act in accordance with the principles of high policy, I should like to know what high policy is, and how a man can pursue it.
Apart from looking upon this as an investment, if the shares had been offered, and if there had been no arrangement of paying interest for nineteen years, so far as I am concerned, I should have been in favour of the purchase of the shares. I should have agreed with Lord Derby in thinking that England would never be satisfied if all the shares of the Suez Canal were possessed by a foreign company. Then it is said, if any obstacles had been put in your way by the French proprietors of the canal, you know very well that ultimately it must come to force, and you will then obtain at once the satisfaction of your desire. Well, if the government of the world was a mere alternation between abstract right and overwhelming force, I agree there is a good deal in that observation; but that is not the way in which the world is governed. The world is governed by conciliation, compromise, influence, varied interests, the recognition of the rights of others, coupled with the assertion of one's own; and, in addition, a general conviction, resulting from explanation and good understanding, that it is for the interests of all parties that matters should be conducted in a satisfactory and peaceful manner.... I cannot doubt that the moral influence of England possessing two-fifths of the shares in this great undertaking must have made itself felt, must have a considerable influence upon the conduct of those who manage the company.... England is a Mediterranean Power; a great Mediterranean Power. This is shown by the fact that in time of war always, and frequently in time of peace, she has the greatest force upon those waters. Furthermore, she has strongholds upon those waters which she will never relinquish. The policy of England, however, is not one of aggression. It is not provinces she wants. She will not interest herself in the redistribution of territory on the shores of the Mediterranean, as long as the redistribution does not imperil the freedom of the seas and the dominion which she legitimately exercises. And therefore I look upon this, that in the great chain of fortresses which we possess, almost from the Metropolis to India, that the Suez Canal is a means of securing the free intercourse of the waters, is a great addition to that security, and one we should prize.
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Afghanistan," C 2, 190, of 1878, p. 156.
Extract from Lord Salisbury's Despatch to the Viceroy of India, dated February 28, 1876.
The increasing weakness and uncertainty of British influence in Afghanistan constitutes a prospective peril to British interests; the deplorable interruption of it in Khelat inflicts upon them an immediate inconvenience by involving the cessation of all effective control over the turbulent and predatory habits of the trans-Indus tribes. In view of these considerations, Her Majesty's Government have ... instructed the Viceroy to find an early occasion for sending to Cabul a temporary mission, furnished with such instructions as may, perhaps, enable it to overcome the Ameer's apparent reluctance to the establishment of permanent British Agencies in Afghanistan, by convincing His Highness that the Government of India is ... willing to afford him material support in the defence of his territories from any actual and unprovoked external aggression, but that it cannot practically avert or provide for such a contingency without timely and unrestricted permission to place its own agents in those parts of his dominions whence they may best watch the course of events. It appears to Her Majesty's Government that the present moment is favourable for the execution of this last-mentioned instruction. The Queen's assumption of the Imperial title in relation to Her Majesty's Indian subjects, feudatories, and allies will now for the first time conspicuously transfer to her Indian dominion, in form as well as in fact, the supreme authority of the Indian Empire.... The maintenance in Afghanistan of a strong and friendly power has at all times been the object of British policy. The attainment of this object is now to be considered with due reference to the situation created by the recent and rapid advance of the Russian arms in Central Asia towards the Northern frontiers of British India. Her Majesty's Government cannot view with complete indifference the probable influence of that situation upon the uncertain character of an Oriental Chief whose ill-defined dominions are thus brought, within a steadily narrowing circle, between the conflicting pressures of two great military Empires, one of which expostulates and remains passive, whilst the other apologizes and continues to move forward. It is well known that not only the English newspapers, but also all works published in England upon Indian questions, are rapidly translated for the information of the Ameer, and carefully studied by His Highness. Sentiments of irritation and alarm at the advancing power of Russia in Central Asia find frequent expression through the English press, in language which, if taken by Shere Ali for a revelation of the mind of the English Government, must have long been accumulating in his mind impressions unfavourable to its confidence in British power.... Her Majesty's Government would not, therefore, view with indifference any attempt on the part of Russia to compete with British influence in Afghanistan, nor could the Ameer's reception of a British Agent (whatever be the official rank or function of that Agent) in any part of the dominions of His Highness afford for his subsequent reception of a Russian Agent any pretext to which the Government of Her Majesty would not be entitled to, except as incompatible with the assurances spontaneously offered to it by the Cabinet of St. Petersburg. You will bear in mind these facts when framing instructions for your mission to Cabul.... The conduct of Shere Ali has more than once been characterized by so significant a disregard of the wishes and interests of the Government of India that the irretrievable alienation of his confidence in the sincerity and power of that Government is a contingency which cannot be dismissed as impossible. Should such a fear be confirmed by the result of the proposed negotiation, no time must be lost in reconsidering, from a new point of view, the policy to be pursued in reference to Afghanistan.
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 227, col. 1,736 (Debate on Royal Titles Bill, March 9, 1876).
Mr. Gladstone: ... In my opinion this is a matter of the greatest importance. We have had some declarations in this House with respect to India. The hon. member for West Cumberland (Mr. Percy Wyndham), on the night when the right hon. gentleman first made his proposal, said that an Imperial title would be the one most suitable, because it would signify that Her Majesty governed India without the restraints of law or constitution.
Mr. Percy Wyndham: I said that the Government of India was a despotic Government, not in the hands of one person, and not, as in this country, a constitutional Government in the hands of the Queen and the Houses of Lords and Commons. The Government of India is essentially a despotic Government as administered by us, although it includes more than one individual.
Mr. Gladstone: I am very much obliged, and I perceive completely the hon. member's meaning; but I am sorry that to that meaning, as it stands, I take the greatest objection. If it be true—and it is true—that we govern India without the restraints of law, except such law as we make ourselves; if it be true that we have not been able to give to India the benefit and blessings of free institutions, I leave it to the hon. gentleman—I leave it to the right hon. gentleman if he thinks fit—to boast that he is about to place that fact solemnly upon record. By the assumption of the title of Empress, I for one will not attempt to turn into glory that which, so far as it is true, I feel to be our weakness and our calamity.... It is plain that the government of India—that is, the entire India—never has yet, by statute, been vested in Her Majesty; but that which has been vested is the government of the countries which were held in trust for Her Majesty by the East India Company. I would be the last man to raise this question if it were a mere verbal quibble. It is as far as possible from being a question merely verbal.... I am under the belief that to this moment there are important Princes and States in India over which we have never assumed dominion, whatever may have been our superiority of strength. We are now going, by Act of Parliament, to assume that dominion, the possible consequences of which no man can foresee; and when the right hon. gentleman tells us the Princes desire this change to be made, does he really mean to assure us that this is the case? If so, I require distinct evidence of the fact. There are Princes in India who, no doubt, have hitherto enjoyed no more than a theoretical political supremacy, but do they desire to surrender even that under the provisions of this Bill? The right hon. gentleman is going to advise the Queen to become Empress of India. I raise the question, What is India? I have said that the dominion now vested in Her Majesty is limited to the territories vested in the East India Company. I ask whether the supremacy of certain important Native States in India ever was vested in the Company, or whether it was not? We are bound to ask the right hon. gentleman—and I think he is bound to answer the question through the medium of his best legal authorities—whether this supremacy is so vested or not, and whether he can assure us upon his responsibility that no political change in the condition of the Native Princes of India will be effected by this Bill. If there is a political change effected, I do not hesitate to say I do not think it would be possible to offer too determined an opposition to the proposal of the Government.... I feel with the right hon. gentleman—indeed, I feel a little more than the right hon. gentleman—the greatness, the unsullied greatness, of the title which is now borne by the Queen of England. I think I use the language of moderation when I say that it is a title unequalled for its dignity and weight, unequalled for the glory of its historic associations, unequalled for the promise which it offers to the future, among the titles of the Sovereigns of Europe, among all the states and nations on earth. Sir, I have a jealousy of touching that title, and I am not to be told that this is a small matter. There is nothing small in a matter, in my judgment, which touches the honour and dignity of the Crown of England.... The right hon. gentleman has indeed manfully contended that there is no inferiority in the title of King as compared with that of Emperor.... I want to know why I am to be dragged into novelties, or into comparisons on a subject of this sort?... There is one other point on which I am anxious to make a few comments. I was, I own, struck by what fell from my right hon. friend the member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe) the other evening in reference to the colonies. Whether it be desirable to make any recital with regard to the colonies or not, it is a subject which requires much consideration whether we can wisely introduce reference to India in the title of the Sovereign, while we at the same time take no notice of the colonies.
I. Thunder from Mr. Gladstone.
Source.—Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet, Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East, 1876, p. 10.
In default of Parliamentary action, and a public concentrated as usual, we must proceed as we can, with impaired means of appeal. But honour, duty, compassion, and I must add shame, are sentiments never in a state of coma. The working-men of the country, whose condition is less affected than that of others by the season, have to their honour led the way, and shown that the great heart of Britain has not ceased to beat. And the large towns and cities, now following in troops, are echoing back, each from its own place, the mingled notes of horror, pain, and indignation.... A curtain opaque and dense, which at the prorogation had been lifted but a few inches from the ground, has since then, from day to day, been slowly rising. And what a scene it has disclosed! And where!
... I have the fullest confidence in the honour and in the intelligence of Mr. Baring, who has been inquiring on behalf of England. But he was not sent to examine the matter until the 19th of July, three months after the rising, and nearly one month after the first inquiries in Parliament. He had been but two days at Philippopolis, when he sent home, with all the despatch he could use, some few rudiments of a future report. Among them was his estimate of the murders, necessarily far from final, at the figure of twelve thousand.
We know that we had a well-manned Embassy at Constantinople, and a network of Consulates and Vice-Consulates, really discharging diplomatic duties, all over the provinces of European Turkey. That villages could be burned down by scores, and men, women, and children murdered, or worse than murdered, by thousands, in a Turkish province lying between the capital and the scene of the recent excitements, and that our Embassy and Consulates could know nothing of it? The thing was impossible. It could not be. So silence was obtained, and relief; and the well-oiled machinery of our luxurious, indifferent life worked smoothly on....
It was on the 20th of April that the insurrection broke out in Bulgaria.... On the 9th of May Sir Henry Elliot ... observing a great Mohammedan excitement, and an extensive purchase of arms in Constantinople, wisely telegraphed to the British Admiral in the Mediterranean expressing a desire that he would bring his squadron to Besika Bay. The purpose was for the protection of British subjects, and of the Christians in general.... These measures were substantially wise, and purely pacific. They had, if understood rightly, no political aspect, or, if any, one rather anti-Turkish than Turkish. But there were reasons, and strong reasons, why the public should not have been left to grope out for itself the meaning of a step so serious as the movement of a naval squadron towards a country disturbed both by revolt and by an outbreak of murderous fanaticism. In the year 1853, when the negotiations with Russia had assumed a gloomy and almost a hopeless aspect, the English and French fleets were sent eastwards; not as a measure of war, but as a measure of preparation for war, and proximate to war. The proceedings marked a transition of discussion into that angry stage which immediately precedes a blow; and the place, to which the fleets were then sent, was Besika Bay. In the absence of information, how could the British nation avoid supposing that the same act, as that done in 1853, bore also the same meaning?... The expectation of a rupture pervaded the public mind. The Russian funds fell very heavily, under a war panic; partisans exulted in a diplomatic victory, and in the increase of what is called our prestige, the bane, in my opinion, of all upright politics. The Turk was encouraged in his humour of resistance. And this, as we now know, while his hands were so reddened with Bulgarian blood. Foreign capitals were amazed at the martial excitement in London. But the Government spoke never a word.... And this ostentatious protection to Turkey, this wanton disturbance of Europe, was continued by our Ministry, with what I must call a strange perversity, for weeks and weeks....
What we have to guard against is imposture—that Proteus with a thousand forms. A few months ago the new Sultan served the turn, and very well. Men affirmed that he must have time. And now another new Sultan is in the offing. I suppose it will be argued that he must have time too. Then there will be, perhaps, new constitutions; firmans of reforms; proclamations to commanders of Turkish armies, enjoining extra humanity. All these should be quietly set down as simply zero. At this moment we hear of the adoption by the Turks of the last and most enlightened rule of warfare—namely, the Geneva Convention. They might just as well adopt the Vatican Council or the British Constitution. All these things are not even the oysters before the dinner. Still worse is any plea founded upon any reports made by Turkish authority upon the Bulgarian outrages.... I return to, and I end with, that which is the Omega as well as the Alpha of this great and most mournful case. An old servant of the Crown and State, I entreat my countrymen, upon whom far more than perhaps any other people of Europe it depends, to require, and to insist, that our Government, which has been working in one direction, shall work in the other, and shall apply all its vigour to concur with the other States of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner—namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to the memory of those heaps on heaps of dead; to the violated purity alike of matron, of maiden, and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large. There is not a criminal in a European gaol, there is not a cannibal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not rise and overboil at the recital of that which has been done, which has left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions that produced it, and which may again spring up, in another murderous harvest, from the soil soaked and reeking with blood, and in the air tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame.
II. Cold Water from Disraeli.
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 231, col. 1,138, August 11, 1876 (Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill; Bulgarian Atrocities raised).
Mr. Disraeli: ... Let me at once place before the House what I believe is the true view of the circumstances which principally interest us to-night, for, after the Rhodian eloquence to which we have just listened, it is rather difficult for the House to see clearly the point which is before it. The Queen's Ambassador at Constantinople, who has at all times no easy duty to fulfil, found himself at the end of April and in the first three weeks of May in a position of extreme difficulty and danger. Affairs in Constantinople never had assumed—at least in our time, certainly—a more perilous character. It was difficult to ascertain what was going to happen; but that something was going to happen, and something of a character which might disturb the relations of the Porte with all the Powers of Europe, and might even bring about a revolution, the effect of which would be felt in distant countries, there was no doubt.... In the present instance the hon. and learned gentleman has made one assumption throughout his speech—that there has been no communication whatever between the Queen's Ambassador at Constantinople and Her Majesty's Ministers upon the subject in discussion; that we never heard of those affairs until the newspapers published accounts. The state of the facts is the reverse. From the very first period that these transactions occurred—from the very commencement—the Ambassador was in constant communication with Her Majesty's Ministers. (No, no.) Why, that may be proved by the papers on the table. Throughout the months of May and June the Ambassador is constantly referring to the atrocities occurring in Bulgaria and to the repeated protests which he is making to the Turkish Government, and informing Her Majesty's Government of interviews and conversations with the Grand Vizier on that subject. The hon. and learned gentleman says that when questions were addressed to me in this House I was perfectly ignorant of what was taking place. But that is exactly the question we have to settle to-night. I say that we were not perfectly ignorant of what was taking place.... I agree that even the slightest estimate of the horrors that occurred in Bulgaria is quite enough to excite the indignation of this country and of Parliament; but when you come to say that we were ignorant of all that was occurring, and did nothing to counteract it, because we said in answer to Questions that the information which had reached us did not warrant the statements that were quoted in the House—these are two entirely different questions. In the newspaper which has been referred to the first account was, if I recollect aright, that 30,000 or 32,000 persons had been slain; that 10,000 were in prison; it was also stated that 1,000 girls had been sold in the open market, that 40 girls had been burnt alive in a stable; and cartloads of human heads paraded through the streets of the cities of Bulgaria—these were some of, though not all, the statements made; and I was perfectly justified in saying that the information which had reached us did not justify these statements, and therefore we believed them to be exaggerated.... Lord Derby telegraphed to Sir Henry Elliot that it was very important that Her Majesty's Government should be able to reply to the inquiries made in Parliament respecting these and other statements, and directed Sir Henry Elliot to inquire by telegram of the Consuls, and report as soon as he could. All these statements are untrue. There never were forty maidens locked up in a stable and burnt alive. That was ascertained with great care by Mr. Baring, and I am surprised that the right hon. gentleman the member for Bradford should still speak of it as a statement in which he has confidence. I believe it to be an entire fabrication. I believe also it is an entire fabrication that 1,000 young women were sold in the market as slaves. We have not received the slightest evidence of a single sale, even in those journals on which the right hon. gentleman the member for Bradford founded his erratic speech. I have been attacked for saying that I did not believe it was possible to have 10,000 persons in prison in Bulgaria. So far as I can ascertain from the papers, there never could have been more than 3,000. As to the 10,000 cases of torture, what evidence is there of a single case of torture? We know very well that there has been considerable slaughter; that there must have been isolated and individual cases of most atrocious rapine, and outrages of a most atrocious kind; but still we have had communications with Sir Henry Elliot, and he has always assumed from what he knew that these cases of individual rapine and outrage were occurring. He knew that civil war there was carried on under conditions of brutality which, unfortunately, are not unprecedented in that country; and the question is whether the information we had justified the extravagant statements made in Parliament, which no one pretends to uphold and defend.... The hon. and learned member (Sir W. Harcourt) has done full justice to the Bulgarian atrocities. He has assumed as absolutely true everything that criticism and more authentic information had modified, and in some cases had proved not merely to be exaggeration but to be absolute falsehoods. And then the hon. and learned gentleman says—"By your policy you have depopulated a province." Well, sir, certainly the slaughter of 12,000 individuals, whether Turks or Bulgarians, whether they were innocent peasants or even brigands, is a horrible event which no one can think of without emotion. But when I remember that the population of Bulgaria is 3,700,000 persons, and that it is a very large country, is it not a most extravagant abuse of rhetoric to say that the slaughter of so considerable a number as 12,000 is the depopulation of a province? Well, the hon. and learned gentleman said also that Her Majesty's Government had incurred a responsibility which is not possessed by any other country as regards our relations with and our influence with the Turks. I say that we have incurred no responsibility which is not shared with us by all the other contracting Powers to the Treaty of Paris. I utterly disclaim any peculiar responsibility.... That an hon. and learned gentleman, once a member of a Government and an ornament of that Government, should counsel as the solution of all these difficulties that Her Majesty's Government should enter into an immediate combination to expel the Turkish nation from Eastern Europe does indeed surprise me. And because we are not prepared to enter into a scheme so quixotic as that would be, we are held up as having given our moral, not to say our material, support to Turkey.... We are, it is true, the allies of Turkey; so is Austria, so is Russia, so is France, and so are others. We are also their partners in a tripartite Treaty, in which we not only generally, but singly, guarantee with France and Austria the territorial integrity of Turkey. And if these engagements, renovated and repeated only four years ago by the wisdom of Europe, are to be treated by the hon. and learned gentleman as idle wind and chaff, and if we are to be told that our political duty is by force to expel the Turks to the other side of the Bosphorus, then politics cease to be an art, statesmanship becomes a mere mockery, and instead of being a House of Commons faithful to its traditions, and which is always influenced, I have ever thought, by sound principles of policy, whoever may be its leaders, we had better at once resolve ourselves into one of those revolutionary clubs which settle all political and social questions with the same ease as the hon. and learned member.
[Note.—This was Disraeli's last speech as a member of the House of Commons. He was raised to the peerage on August 12, 1876.]
Source.—The Times, January 7.
Whereas grievous disturbances have broken out in the territories adjacent to Our colonies in South Africa, with war between the white inhabitants and the native races, to the great peril of the peace and safety of Our said colonies; and whereas, having regard to the safety of Our said colonies, it greatly concerns Us that full inquiry should be made into the origin, nature, and circumstances of the said disturbances, and with respect to the measures to be adopted for preventing the recurrence of the like disturbances in the future; and whereas it may become requisite to this end that the said territories, or portions of them, should be administered in Our name and in Our behalf.
Now know you that We, having especial trust and confidence in the loyalty and fidelity of you, the said Sir Theophilus Shepstone, have appointed you to be Our special Commissioner for the purpose of making such inquiry as aforesaid ... and if the emergency seem to you to be such as to render it necessary, in order to secure the peace and safety of Our said colonies, and of Our subjects elsewhere, that the said territories, or any portion or portions of the same, should be provisionally, and pending the announcement of Our pleasure, be administered in Our name and on Our behalf, then, and in such case only, We do further authorize you, the said Sir Theophilus Shepstone, by proclamation under your hand, to declare that from and after a day to be therein named, so much of any such territories aforesaid as to you, after due consideration, shall seem fit, shall be annexed and form part of Our dominions.
And We do hereby constitute and appoint you to be thereupon Administrator of the same provisionally and until Our pleasure is more fully known.
Provided, first, that no such proclamation shall be issued by you with respect to any district, territory, or state, unless you shall be satisfied that the inhabitants thereof, or a sufficient number of them, or the Legislature thereof, desire to become Our subjects; nor if any conditions unduly limiting Our power and authority therein are sought to be imposed....
Source.—The Times, April 25.
We have not a word to say in defence of the Porte. We admit that it was guilty, as Lord Salisbury has confessed, of infatuation when it defied the Conference, and that it would have accepted even the Protocol, if it had possessed a tithe of the sagacity which was once a better protection of its weakness than ironclads are to-day. We may even admit that the Protocol was, what Prince Gortchakoff styles it, the last expression of the united will of Europe. But his story is fatally incomplete. It would have been desirable to know whether Russia has done her best to make it easy for Turkey to accept the undisguised tutelage of the European Powers. That question calls to mind how much the fanaticism of the Turks was inflamed by the covert aid which Russia gave to Servia. The Czar refers to the famous words which he spoke in the Kremlin. They were indeed the real declaration of war, for they prevented Russia from accepting anything less than the complete submission of Turkey. Russia might plead, no doubt, that as war was certain to be found an absolute necessity in the end, it mattered little how rudely she ruffled the Osmanli pride. But in that case the negotiations of the past two years have been a series of hypocrisies. As it is, the general judgment is expressed by what Lord Derby said last night. While he found it hopeless to bend the will of Turkey towards submission, he equally found on the part of her Government "a deeply seated conviction that, do what they would, sooner or later war would be forced upon them." He believed that he and his colleagues have throughout been "engaged in the solution of a hopeless problem." Such, we fear, is the prosaic truth, and, whatever be the measure of Turkish obstinacy, Russia cannot escape condemnation. She has sometimes acted as if she wished to cut off a way of retreat both from herself and her foe.... Russia has hastened to stop all further negotiations, and to act as if she and she alone had an interest in the tranquillity of the Turkish Empire. Thus she has forfeited any right to speak in the name of Europe. Nor has she given the Powers assurances which they had a right to expect. Nothing is said in the same strain as the declarations at Livadia, that Russia had no objects of territorial ambition.... The Czar has committed a grave error by neglecting to proclaim that in no event would he seize Turkish territory.
Source.—The Times, August 1.
Mr. Parnell and his special friends greatly distinguished themselves in the House of Commons last night by the multiplicity of the motions in committee on the South Africa Bill. The Government adopted special means to wear out the tenacity of the members who thus consume hour after hour, for it had arranged that the House should sit until the work should be done, even if the discussion should last till breakfast time. But it does injustice to Mr. Parnell. He is the most misunderstood and most ill-used man in the House of Commons. Such is the burden of the long letter from him which we printed on Monday. He has been accused of trying to stop public business by floods of irrelevant speech. He has been charged with something like open disrespect for the authority of Mr. Speaker. He has been suspected of a wish to make Irish members intolerable, in the hope that weary Englishmen and Scotchmen would bid them begone to enjoy the beatitudes of Home Rule. He has made the Leader of the House, although the mildest of men, propose to banish him to the penal settlement of silence, and the House has done him the honour of framing two new rules to impede the flow of his speech during the rest of the Session.... The incorrectness of that accusation, he replies, is proved by the comparatively small use he has made of almost boundless opportunities. If his enemies speak of what he has done, he appeals to what he might have done. Has he obstructed every clause of every Bill? Has he even obstructed every Bill? Has he exhausted all the forms of the House even yet? These questions oppress us with a sense of his moderation. If he has done so much, he might have done so much more! As most Bills have at least ten clauses, as most clauses contain at least a hundred words, and as at least one amendment might be moved after each word, Mr. Parnell could have opposed each Bill with at least a thousand amendments, and he himself, Mr. Biggar, and Mr. O'Donnell could each have delivered at least a thousand speeches.
Source.—The Times, December 15.
From Our Special Correspondent.—Plevna, December 11.
As I rode up the slope of the hill east of Plevna towards the redoubt defending the road between the town and the village of Radicheve, a ghastly scene was presented. Hundreds of Russian skeletons lay glistening on the hillsides, where they had fallen during the assault of September. The bones were generally completely bare. Those nearest to the earthwork had been covered with a few inches of earth, which had been washed off by the first shower, and now they lay as naked as the others. The Moslem outpost pits were among these skeletons, many of them not being more than a yard distant. Singular as it may seem, many of these skeletons had distinct expressions, both in the attitude in which they had fallen and in the position of the fleshless jaws. I could distinguish those who had fallen without suffering from those who had died in agony, and the effect was such as I shall never forget. The Russian soldiers who marched into Plevna in the rear of Osman's sallying force passed among these remains of their unburied comrades.... On entering the town I was surprised to find it so little injured by the cannonading....
Within a short time after Osman's surrender at the bridge over the Vid, on the Sofia road, the 16,000 prisoners were turned back into the town, with the artillery and transport trains.... The Turks were well fed in appearance, but were generally ragged, and were all wearing sandals. No boots were to be seen, though most of them had overcoats.... The contrast between these tatterdemalion battalions and the well-dressed men guarding them made the war appear a one-sided affair, until the reflection came that a ragged man shot as well as one perfectly equipped. Later in the day, standing on the Sofia road, in the Gravitza valley west of Plevna, I surveyed the whole basin forming Osman's position. The herbage and all other growing things had so effectually disappeared that the earth's surface looked as if a conflagration had swept over every square foot of it. The colour was a dull brown, and I never gazed upon a more dismal-looking region. The sides of the basin were serried by ravines, all centering in the valley where I stood, and upon the surrounding edges of the basin were the Turkish and Allied batteries planted in irregular line, but commanding every vantage-point of the neighbourhood.... Where the Gravitza chaussÉe crosses the elevation the Turkish redoubts were weakest, and here the Russian artillery fire had been chiefly concentrated. The front and rear of the earthworks were ploughed up by shells, and in truth there was scarcely a square yard which had not been struck. Thousands of such missiles, varying from 3 inches to 6 inches in diameter, lay unexploded upon the surface of the earth. In a previous telegram I said that these redoubts were battered to pieces; but I now discover that this was a curious error of vision. The works are practically uninjured. So far as the earthworks are concerned, the Russian artillery ammunition has been absolutely wasted, and from an inspection of the trenches I do not believe that the garrison has suffered more than their defences. Neither do I believe that any artillery could have accomplished more. The fact is that shells against earthworks are useless at a greater distance than 500 or 600 yards, and then the guns cannot be worked on account of the enemy's sharpshooters. The Turkish soldiers in the redoubts had bomb-proof abodes in the back walls of the pits.... I was very much surprised to find the Turkish lines of fortification so weak, as far as the quantity of earthwork is concerned. The redoubts are much smaller than I supposed them to be.... There are no double lines of infantry trenches—in fact, no interior lines of any sort; neither are there trenches on the hillsides below the redoubts. There are no lines of intrenchments for the reserves; indeed, there were apparently no reserves. When I saw this technically weak line I could not but admire the efficiency of the weapons with which it had been defended, and the stubborn tenacity of the men who could hold it against such assaults as the Allies have delivered against it. The Allies had double and treble lines around Plevna. Their works are much better constructed than those of the Turks, so far as finish is concerned; but for safety I would rather trust myself to the latter.... The Roumanian trenches, however, were well constructed and capacious. The best trench is within 25 feet of the Turkish counterscarp [of a redoubt]. From the bottom of this trench two shafts were sunk about 15 feet in depth, and from the bottom two galleries had been pushed under the Turkish parapet, and the mines were nearly ready when the Moslems evacuated their positions. But the strangest part of the history of this siege is the fact that the Turks had also mined the Gravitza redoubt opposite, and before leaving their earthwork they had fired the mining fuse. The Roumanians, discovering their departure, entered their ditches, found the gallery, and reached the fuse in time to quench it before it had burned to the explosive charge; so that each was prepared to blow the other up without knowing, apparently, that counter-operations were in progress....
At noon to-day the Emperor arrived at the redoubt defending the approach to Plevna by the Gravitza chaussÉe.... [After a religious service] the whole party rode into Plevna, taking the less frequented streets, lest some assassin might fire upon the Emperor. In a small house, surrounded by a high stone wall, lunch was served, after which there was a sudden hush, and Osman Pasha was carried into the yard and through the portico by a Cossack officer and one of his own attendants. As he passed through the crowd of staff officers, every one saluted him, and shouted, "Bravo, Osman!" He then passed into the presence of the Emperor, who shook hands with him, and informed him that, in consideration of his gallant defence of Plevna, he had given orders that his sword should be returned to him, and that he could wear it.
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 237, cols. 1,326, 1332 (Questions, February 8, 1878).
The Chancellor of the Exchequer: Mr. Speaker, the Government have received a telegram to-day from Mr. Layard, containing a summary of the articles of the armistice.... The telegram ends by saying that the Turks have begun to remove their guns from the Constantinople lines. Now it is quite evident that, whatever may have been the arrangements with regard to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, a neutral zone has been declared, which includes the lines of Tchekmedje, which protect Constantinople; and according to the terms of the armistice the Turks are bound not to retain those fortresses, and accordingly are bound to remove—and are quietly beginning to remove—their guns and armaments from the fortifications by lines and to specified places.... The consequence is that, although the Russians do not occupy those lines themselves, they occupy an outpost close to them, while the lines themselves are being thoroughly disarmed. They have the power, therefore, at any moment, subject to the necessity of giving three days' notice of the termination of the armistice, of advancing on Constantinople without hindrance.... I may perhaps venture to call the attention of the House to one of the papers which we laid upon the table yesterday. That contains a copy of a Memorandum which was communicated to the Russian Ambassador by Her Majesty's Government on the 28th of July last, in which they say they "look with much anxiety at the state of things in Constantinople, and the prospect of the disorder and bloodshed, and even anarchy, which may occur as the Russian forces draw near to the capital. The crisis which may at any time arrive in Constantinople may be such as Her Majesty's Government could not overlook, while they had the means of mitigating its horrors. Her Majesty's Government are fully determined (unless it should be necessary for the preservation of interests which they have already stated they are bound to maintain) not to depart from the line of neutrality which they have declared their intention to observe; but they do not consider that they would be departing from this neutrality, and they think that Russia will not consider they are doing so, if they should find themselves compelled to direct their fleet to proceed to Constantinople, and thus afford protection to the European population against internal disturbance." The Government, I may add, feel that the state of affairs disclosed by the armistice has given rise to the danger which they thus apprehended, and they have, in the circumstances, thought it right to order a portion of the fleet to proceed at once to Constantinople for the purpose of protecting the lives and property of British subjects.
Cols. 1622-1623 (Questions, February 13, 1878).
The Chancellor of the Exchequer: I stated, I think, or at all events referred on Monday to the fact, that communications had been made to the Porte to ascertain whether permission would be given, or a firman be granted, for the British fleet to enter the Dardanelles. That permission was refused, but Her Majesty's Government thought it right to direct the ships to proceed, and they have proceeded accordingly. No material opposition was offered, and they are by this time, I presume, anchored in the neighbourhood of Constantinople. I may perhaps mention that a communication has been made by the Russian Government to the effect that, in view of the intended sending of the fleet by Her Majesty's Government to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, it would be a matter for the consideration of the Russian Government whether they should not themselves occupy the city. In answer to that Her Majesty's Government have sent a communication which will be laid on the table of the House to-night, in which they protest against that view, and state that they cannot acknowledge that in the case of the two countries the circumstances are parallel, or that the despatch of the British fleet for the purpose indicated justifies the Russian Government in the step which they announce it to be their intention to take.
II.
Source.—The Times, March 29, 1878.
The uncertainty which has prevailed during the last few days respecting the course which our Government would pursue, in view of the difference respecting the Congress which had arisen between ourselves and Russia, has received a startling and momentous solution. When the House of Lords met yesterday, Lord Derby no longer occupied his seat on the Ministerial Bench, and he at once announced that he had resigned the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.... The explanations given yesterday remove all doubt respecting the relative positions assumed by our Government and Russia in regard to the Congress. Sir Stafford Northcote stated in the House of Commons the import of the communications which have passed between ourselves and Russia.... Russia's reply amounted to a clear intimation that she claims to withhold from the cognizance of the Powers any articles of the preliminary Treaty she may choose. Such a reserve as she asserts is tantamount to a definite claim to alter an existing Treaty by force of arms without consulting the other Powers who signed it, and towards whom she is under honourable obligations. There being this imminent danger that the Congress may not meet—it being, as Lord Beaconsfield said, "the belief" of the Government "that the Congress would not meet," it became necessary for the Government to consider what further course they would take.... We do not know what course Lord Derby would have advised, and it is possible he would not immediately have taken any fresh steps. But the rest of the Government decided that in the interests of peace, and for the due protection of the rights of the Empire, it was their duty "to advise Her Majesty to avail herself of those powers which she has for calling for the services of her Reserved Forces." As subsequently explained by Mr. Hardy in the House of Commons, this step is one which is rendered necessary by the new organization of the Army.... Its result will be to raise our regular forces to their utmost efficiency. In other words, it will place the land forces which actually exist in readiness for prompt action; and it is thus a plain declaration—a declaration rendered emphatic by Lord Derby's resignation—that we are prepared to act promptly if the course on which Russia has entered directly injures our honour or our interests. Such a declaration of our being determined to adhere to the claims we have put forward is perhaps the most momentous step which has yet been taken by this country.
Source.—The Times, July 17.
The Premier alighted at his official residence in Downing Street, and was met on the threshold by General Ponsonby, bearing a bouquet of rare flowers, sent to him by the gracious forethought of Her Majesty the Queen.... The ground was well kept by the police, till the Prime Minister appeared at a window and began to speak. Then a rush swept the police away. Three cheers for Lord Beaconsfield were given. For the second time in the day the Prime Minister was visibly affected. He had to wait long for silence, but when an approach to quiet had been obtained Lord Beaconsfield said: "I can assure you that no recognition of neighbours could be more gratifying to my feelings than these expressions of the sentiments of those among whom I see many of my oldest and most cherished friends. Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace, but a peace, I hope, with honour, which may satisfy our Sovereign, and tend to the welfare of the country."
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 242, col. 344 (House of Lords: Debate on the Protocols of Berlin, August, 1878).
The Earl of Rosebery rose to call attention to a memorandum purporting to have been signed by the Marquis of Salisbury and Count Schouvaloff on May 30, 1878, and to ask if it was the intention of the Government to lay it on the table of the House.... The course the Government had pursued with respect to their policy was, he would venture to say, one of obscurity enlivened with sarcasm. In the whole history of the negotiations there were five cardinal points—points which became salient to everyone who had studied the history of these transactions. First, there was the San Stefano treaty; the second was the circular of the 1st of April; the third, the alleged secret agreement of May 30th; the fourth, the secret convention of June 4th with Turkey; and the fifth was the treaty signed at Berlin on the 30th of July. As to the secret agreement between Russia and England, it would be well to recall how they came to have any cognizance of it at all. The substance of it appeared in the Globe within, he thought, three or four days after it was signed, and it was on the 14th of June, he thought, that the entire text was given in the columns of the same journal.... They had all heard that the agreement was not to be laid on the table, because there were documents in connection with it which it would be necessary to present at the same time; but other Powers would not allow us to produce them. What he gathered from all this was that, if it had not been for the ill-advised conduct of a very subordinate clerk in the Foreign Office, who was entrusted with the copying of the agreement at the rate of 10d. an hour, the English public would not at this moment have the faintest conception of such an agreement, and the keystone of the whole purpose of the Government would be wrapped in obscurity. This was alarming in itself, because, if these subterranean methods were employed as a rule, they would give the public some little dismay in regard to the course of further negotiations.... Having signed this agreement, and having signed another secret agreement within two or three days with Turkey, Her Majesty's Plenipotentiaries proceeded, fortified with them, to the Congress. Now came the most extraordinary point in all the history of these negotiations, so far as they knew it. Eight days after the signature, or alleged signature, of this agreement, in which, if the House would remember, we consented to the abandonment of Batoum and other Russian conquests in Armenia, the Foreign Secretary addressed a despatch to our Resident Plenipotentiary in Berlin, in which he urged him to use his exertions to the utmost on behalf of Batoum. The words were so remarkable that he might be pardoned for quoting them to their lordships. On the 8th of June the noble Marquis wrote to Lord Odo Russell: "There is no ground for believing that Russia will willingly give way in respect to Batoum, Kars, or Ardahan; and it is possible that the arguments of England urged in Congress will receive little assistance from other Powers, and will not be able to shake her resolution in this respect." Well, that was not likely under the circumstances. The noble Marquis continued in this letter of June 8th: "You will not on that account abstain from earnestly pressing upon them and upon Russia the justice of abstaining from annexations which are unconnected with the professed object of the war, and profoundly distasteful to the populations concerned, and the expediency, in regard to the future tranquillizing of Asia, of forbearing to shake so perilously the position of the Government of Turkey...." Now, the great point with regard to this was, was Lord Odo Russell, when he received that communication, cognizant of the agreement which had been signed on the 30th of May? Because what they wanted to know was this, was Lord Odo Russell one of a company, or was he a simple actor put up to recite the arguments of Batoum, with a prompter by to keep him to his part?... Then, on the same day, Mr. Secretary Cross addressed a despatch to the Plenipotentiaries of Her Majesty, urging them to make great exertion on behalf of Greece. He should say that the position of a Plenipotentiary who entered the Congress to struggle on behalf of Batoum, Kars, Ardahan, and Greece must have been a somewhat melancholy one in the retrospect; because, when the questions came up, the Turkish positions were abandoned, and Greece was ignored.... He did not pretend that secret understandings were unknown to us, but he believed this was the first time we had called a European Congress with the view of discussing great treaties, and standing forth on behalf of public law, we ourselves having, at the same time, bound ourselves in private to consent to those stipulations which we had denounced, and which we continued to denounce.
Source.—The Times, December 2.
Mr. Gladstone (at Greenwich): I want to ask you, and I think after these two years it is about time, who are the true friends of Russia? Is it we, gentlemen, who met two years and a half ago on Blackheath, and said it was most mischievous to leave to any single country the settlement of the Eastern question?... Who brought Russia back to the Danube? Those very men who are continually denouncing us as the friends of Russia. We had in 1856 by the fortune of war driven Russia back from the Danube; the present Government have brought Russia back to the Danube. They made a secret memorandum with Count Schouvaloff by which they engaged—unless they could convert him by their arguments—to vote in the Congress for bringing Russia back to the Danube.... Who gave Russia the fortress of Kars? The present Government. These people say they want to keep down the power of Russia. Want to keep down the power of Russia! Why, they have left it in her power to make herself the liberator of Bulgaria, and secure for herself the influence which always follows upon gratitude.
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Afghanistan," C 2,190 of 1878, p. 228.
Telegram dated August 2, 1878. From Viceroy, Simla, to Secretary of State, London.
Further confirmation received of presence of Russian mission at Cabul headed by General Abramoff, Governor of Samarkand, who is mentioned by name. We desire to point out that present situation requires immediate correction. It will soon be known throughout India that Russian officers and troops have been received with honour, and are staying at Cabul within short distance of our frontier and our largest military garrison, while our officers have been denied admission there. We have further reports of Russian officers having visited and been well received at Maimena. To remain inactive now will, we respectfully submit, be to allow Afghanistan to fall as certainly and as completely under Russian power and influence as the Khanates. We believe we could correct situation if allowed to treat it as question between us and the Ameer, and probably could do so without recourse to force. But we must speak plainly and decidedly, and be sure of your support. We propose, therefore, in the first place, to insist on reception of suitable British mission at Cabul. To this we do not anticipate serious resistance; indeed, we think it probable that Ameer, adhering to his policy of playing Russia and ourselves off against each other, will really welcome such mission, while outwardly only yielding to pressure....
From Secretary of State, August 3, 1878 (Extract).
Assuming the certainty of Russian officers at Cabul, your proposals to insist on reception of British envoy approved. In case of refusal you will telegraph again as to the steps you desire to take for compelling the Ameer to receive your mission.
Telegram from Viceroy, September 21, 1878.
Chamberlain[A] reports from Peshawur that it is quite evident Ameer is bent on utmost procrastination, and determined on making acceptance of our mission dependent on his pleasure and choice of time.... To await at Peshawur Ameer's pleasure would be to abandon whole policy and accept easy repulse at outset.... Consequently mission moved this morning to Jamrud; thence Cavagnari advances to Ali Musjid with small escort to demand passage....
Telegram from Viceroy, September 22, 1878.
Following telegram received last night from Sir Neville Chamberlain. Message begins: Cavagnari reports that we have received a decisive answer from Faiz Mahomed, after personal interview, that he will not allow mission to proceed. He crowned the heights commanding the way with his levies, and though many times warned by Cavagnari that his reply would be regarded as reply of the Ameer, said he would not let mission pass....
Telegram from Secretary of State, October 30, 1878.
Text of letter, as approved, to be sent to the Ameer.... In consequence of this hostile action on your part, I have assembled Her Majesty's forces on your frontier, but I desire to give you a last opportunity of averting the calamities of war. For this it is necessary that a full and suitable apology be offered by you in writing, and tendered on British territory by an officer of sufficient rank. Furthermore, as it has been found impossible to maintain satisfactory relations between the two States unless the British Government is adequately represented in Afghanistan, it will be necessary that you should consent to receive a permanent British Mission within your territory.... Unless these conditions are accepted, fully and plainly, by you, and your acceptance received by me not later than the 20th November, I shall be compelled to consider your intentions as hostile, and to treat you as a declared enemy of the British Government.
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Afghanistan," C 2,190 of 1878, p. 225.
Extract from a Memorandum by Lord Napier of Magdala.
We have unfortunately managed Shere Ali badly. Perhaps it might not have been possible, with our scruples and his want of them, to have managed him advantageously; but it must be admitted that we have not given him the reasons to unite himself with us that he naturally expected. First, we stood aloof in his struggles for life and empire, ready to acknowledge whoever might prove the master of Afghanistan. Then, when Shere Ali had subdued his enemies, he came forward to meet us with an alliance, but we were willing to form only an imperfect alliance with him. He was willing to trust us, provided that we would trust him; but we felt that we could not bind ourselves to unreserved support of a power whose ideas of right and wrong were so different from ours. We therefore proposed to bind him, leaving ourselves (according to his idea) free, and he recoiled from this bargain. His friendly feelings, however, were not entirely alienated by that experience of us; he abstained from any action towards Seistan at our desire, and he believed that the mediation which we pressed upon him would have ended by the restoration of the portion of Seistan that Persia had occupied in his days of trouble. And not only Shere Ali, but the whole Afghan people, believed that we should restore to them what they had lost. When they found that we had allowed Persia to obstruct and ill-treat our arbitrator, and to retain much of her encroachments, they looked upon us as a weak and treacherous people, who, under the guise of friendship, had spoiled them in favour of Persia. This I believe to be the root of Shere Ali's discontent with us.
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Afghanistan," C 2,401 of 1879, p. 12.
Translation of a Letter, dated February 26, 1879, from Sirdar Mahomed Yakub Khan to Major Cavagnari.
... I now write a second time in accordance with former friendship to inform you that to-day a letter was received by post from Turkestan announcing that my worthy and exalted father had, upon 29th Safar (21st February, 1879), obeyed the call of the summoner, and, throwing off the dress of existence, hastened to the region of the divine mercy.
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Afghanistan," C 2,362 of 1879.
Article III.—His Highness the Ameer of Afghanistan and its dependencies agrees to conduct his relations with foreign States in accordance with the advice and wishes of the British Government.... The British Government will support the Ameer against any foreign aggression with money, arms, or troops, to be employed in whatsoever manner the British Government may judge best for the purpose.
Article IV.—With a view to the maintenance of the direct and intimate relations now established ... it is agreed that a British Resident representative shall reside at Cabul, with a suitable escort, in a place of residence appropriate to his rank and dignity. It is also agreed that the British Government shall have the right to depute British Agents with suitable escorts to the Afghan frontiers, whensoever this may be considered necessary by the British Government in the interests of both States, on the occurrence of any important external fact....
Article IX.—The British Government restores to His Highness the Ameer of Afghanistan and its dependencies the towns of Candahar and Jellalabad, with all the territory now in possession of the British armies, excepting the districts of Kurram, Pishin, and Sibi. His Highness ... agrees on his part that the districts of Kurram, Pishin, and Sibi, according to the limits defined in the schedule annexed, shall remain under the protection and administrative control of the British Government: that is to say, the aforesaid districts shall be treated as assigned districts, and shall not be considered as permanently severed from the limits of the Afghan kingdom.... The British Government will retain in its own hands the control of the Khyber and Michni Passes, and of all relations with the independent tribes of the territory directly connected with these passes.
Done at Gandamak this 26th day of May, 1879.
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Afghanistan," C 2,457 of 1880, p. 95.
Statement of Taimur (Timoss), Sowar B troop, Corps of Guides, on September 15, 1879.
I was in the Bala Hissar, Cabul, on the 3rd instant: Major Sir Louis Cavagnari and the other British officers were in the bungalow. At about 8 a.m. the Turkestani ("Ardal") regiment, which was in the Bala Hissar, was paraded to receive its pay. Daud Shah, the Commander-in-Chief, gave them one month's pay. They claimed two, and broke. They were paraded quite close to the Residency, and another regiment was also quartered with them. One of soldiery shouted out, "Let us destroy the Envoy first of all, and after that the Ameer!" They rushed into the courtyard in front of the Residency, and stoned some of the syces who were sitting there. We then opened fire on them, without orders from any European. All the British officers were inside. The Ameer's men then went for their weapons, and returned with them in a quarter of an hour. They then commenced to besiege the Residency, and from commanding positions made the roof of the Residency untenable. We made shelter trenches on it, and fired from the windows. The city people came to help the soldiers about 10 a.m. Major Sir Louis Cavagnari was wounded in the forehead about 1 p.m.; he was in a shelter trench. A man from the roof of a house shot at him, and the bullet striking a brick, it, together with a piece of brick, struck Sir Louis. But he was not killed. Mr. Jenkyns came up and sent for a Munshi to write to the Ameer, but the scribe was unable to write through fear. I then wrote briefly to the Ameer that we were besieged, and he was to help us; and sent it by Gholam Nabbi, a Kabuli, an old Guide Sowar who was in the Residency. No answer came. Gholam Nabbi afterwards told me that the Ameer wrote on the letter, "If God will, I am just making arrangements." Major Cavagnari was helped into the Residency, and tended to by Dr. Kelly. Mr. Jenkyns then ordered me to send a second letter to the Ameer, stating that Major Cavagnari was wounded, and to hasten on assistance. The letter was sent by a Hindu whose name I don't know. He was cut to pieces in front of the Residency. I was at about 3 p.m. sent with a letter by Mr. Hamilton promising six months' pay. By that time they had managed to get on to the roof of the Residency. I went armed into the midst of the crowd, and was immediately stripped of my arms, but my life was saved by an officer. They threw me from the roof of the Residency on to the roof of the neighbouring house. I lost my senses.... I know nothing of what happened after this, but I visited the place next morning. I recollect they had begun to set fire to the Residency just as I was leaving.... Daybreak I went to the Residency, and saw first the corpse of Lieutenant Hamilton lying over a mountain gun which had been brought up. The troops who were there told me Mr. Hamilton had shot about three men with his pistol, and had cut down two more before he was shot. He was stripped and cut into pieces, but not dishonoured. About 25 feet off was the body of Mr. Jenkyns in a similar state. I did not go into the Residency, but was told Dr. Kelly was lying killed in the Residency. Sir Louis Cavagnari was in the Residency when it fell in flames. He was in the room where the wounded were, and his body had not been discovered when I left the city.
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Afghanistan," C 2,457 of 1880, p. 83.
Extract from Deposition of Ressaldar-Major Nakshband Khan.
At about 9 a.m., while the fighting was going on, I myself saw the four European officers charge out at the head of some twenty-five of the garrison; they drove away a party that were holding some broken ground. About a quarter of an hour after this another sally was made by a party with three officers at their head—Cavagnari was not with them this time—with the same result. A third sally was made with two British officers (Jenkyns and Hamilton) leading; a fourth sally was made with a Sikh Jemadar bravely leading. No more sallies were made after this. They all appeared to go to the upper part of the house, and fired from above. At about half-past eleven o'clock part of the building, in which the Embassy was, was noticed to be on fire. I do not know who fired it. I think it probable that the defenders, finding themselves so few, fired part, so as to have a less space to defend. The firing went on continuously all day; perhaps it was hottest from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., after which it slackened, and the last shots were fired at about 8.30 p.m. or 9 p.m., after which all was quiet, and everyone dispersed. The next morning I heard shots being fired. I asked an old woman, to whose house I had been sent for safety by Sirdar Wali Muhammad Khan, what this was: she sent out her son to find out. He said: "They are shooting the people found still alive in the Residency."
Source.—The Saturday Review, November 29.
The personal enthusiasm with which Mr. Gladstone is regarded by the mass of his followers has been largely stimulated by his appearance in Scotland and by his fervid harangues. The only local topic on which he has cared to dwell is the alleged creation of fagot votes by his opponents. There can be no doubt that the purchase of little freeholds for the sole purpose of obtaining votes is an abuse and a grievance, though it is said that Mr. Gladstone once held a fagot vote. For two or three years of his life Mr. Cobden concentrated all his efforts on a gigantic scheme of fagot votes, by which the manufacturing towns were to obtain control of the counties; but the total failure of the project caused it to be tacitly abandoned. If Mr. Gladstone is after all defeated in Midlothian, the moral effect of a Conservative victory will be greatly impaired by the process of tampering with the representation. To Mr. Gladstone's excited mind an attempt to pack a constituency probably assumes extravagant dimensions. Before he arrived at Edinburgh he began his public protest against fagot votes in Midlothian, as well as against the crimes of a Government which he has persuaded himself to regard as the worst and most dangerous that has held power in England. He has denounced his opponents so loudly and so often that even his overflowing eloquence could include nothing new, but the crowded assemblies which he addressed, though they had read his orations, and perhaps his pamphlets, had not heard him speak. It is not surprising that eager and unanimous multitudes should welcome with admiration and delight the detailed exposition, by the most eloquent of politicians, of the opinions which they had already been taught to hold. Few cold-blooded or dispassionate sceptics would ask themselves whether it was credible that a Ministry and a great and steady majority of the House of Commons should never, even by accident, have deviated into prudence, justice, or patriotic foresight. In private discussion and in Parliamentary debate it is found expedient, according to the old legal phrase, to give colour, or, in other words, to admit that the theory, which is impugned, though unsound, is at least credible or intelligible. Mr. Gladstone follows the bent of his own genius when he encourages the popular tendency to deal with difficult controversies as if they were wholly one-sided.
His Liberal colleagues, perhaps, regard his present enterprise with mixed feelings. Their confidence in their former leader is qualified by doubts of his judgment, and by uncertainty as to the present range of his ambition. They cannot but perceive that he assumes the character of representative of the party, although he probably intends no disloyalty to its official or nominal chiefs. It is true that if, in appealing to the multitude, he pushes his successors aside, they have little right to complain. Almost all of them have of late addressed vehement language to public meetings, though none of them can compete with Mr. Gladstone in the power of stirring political passion. Official subordination is set aside when policy is regulated, not by Parliament, but by the voice of the general population. Senators and Consulars must stand aside in the presence of a Dictator. Although it has long been customary for statesmen to make occasional speeches to public meetings, the extent to which the practice has lately been carried is altogether unprecedented. The result is that the Constitution is gradually weakened by the substitution of numerical majorities for the representatives of the people in Parliament. The approach of a General Election furnishes no sufficient justification for an innovation which accelerates the prevalence of democracy, and aggravates its evil tendencies. Mr. Gladstone himself perhaps understands and approves the organic change which promotes the supremacy of popular eloquence in the State. It is his habit to depreciate the honesty and judgment of the educated classes.
Source.—Holland's Life of the Duke of Devonshire, i. 258. (Longmans and Co.)
Lord Beaconsfield to Mr. Gathorne Hardy.
It certainly is a relief that the drenching rhetoric has at length ceased—but I have never read a word of it. "Satis eloquentiÆ sapientiÆ parum."
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Afghanistan," C 2,736 of 1880, p. 3.
Telegram from Viceroy, June 27, 1880, to Secretary of State.
Telegram from Thomson at Teheran says: Ayub Khan marching against Candahar with large force. I think we should leave Shere Ali to defend himself beyond the Helmund, but it seems to me, after communicating with Stewart, that it would be inconsistent with security of our military position at Candahar to allow hostile forces to cross that river. I propose, therefore, to instruct Primrose, if Ayub reaches Furrah, to advance towards Girishk with sufficient force to prevent passage of Helmund....
Telegram dated August 2, 1880, from Colonel St. John, Candahar, to Foreign, Simla (p. 33).
29th.—Arrived here yesterday afternoon with General Burrows and Nuttall and remnant of force. Telegraph has been interrupted ever since my arrival. No chance of restoration, so send this by messenger to Chaman. Burrows marched from Kushk-i-Nakhud on morning 27th, having heard from me that Ayub's advanced guard had occupied Maiwand, about three miles from the latter place. Enemy's cavalry appeared advancing from direction of Haidrabad, their camp on Helmund ten miles above Girishk. Artillery and cavalry engaged them at 9 a.m., so shortly afterwards whole force of enemy appeared, and formed line of battle—seven regiments, regulars in centre, three others in reserve; about 2,000 cavalry on right; 400 mounted men and 2,000 Ghazis and irregular infantry on left; other cavalry and irregulars in reserve; five or six batteries of guns, including one of breechloaders, distributed at intervals. Estimated total force, 12,000. Ground slightly undulating, enemy being well posted. Till 1 p.m. action confined to artillery fire, which so well sustained and directed by enemy that our superior quality armament failed to compensate for inferior number of guns. After development of rifle fire, our breechloaders told; but vigorous advance of cavalry against our left, and Ghazis along the front, caused native infantry to fall back in confusion on 66th, abandoning two guns. Formation being lost, infantry retreated slowly; and in spite of gallant efforts of General Burrows to rally them, were cut off from cavalry and artillery. This was at 3 p.m., and followers and baggage were streaming away towards Candahar. After severe fighting in enclosed ground, General Burrows succeeded in extricating infantry and brought them into line of retreat. Unfortunately no effort would turn fugitives from main road, waterless at this season. Thus majority casualties appear to have occurred from thirst and exhaustion. Enemy's pursuit continued to ten miles from Candahar, but was not vigorous. Cavalry, artillery, and a few infantry reached banks of Argandab, forty miles from scene of action, at 7 a.m., many not having tasted water since previous morning. Nearly all ammunition lost, with 400 Martini, 700 Sniders, and 2 nine-pounder guns. Estimated loss, killed, and missing: 66th, 400; Grenadiers, 350; Jacob's Rifles, 350; artillery, 40; sappers, 21; cavalry, 60.... Preparations being now made for siege....
Extract from General Burrows's Report on the Action (p. 101).
... Between two and three o'clock the fire of the enemy's guns slackened, and swarms of Ghazis advanced rapidly towards our centre. Up to this time the casualties among the infantry had not been heavy, and as the men were firing steadily, and the guns were sweeping the ground with case shot, I felt confident as to the result. But our fire failed to check the Ghazis; they came on in overwhelming numbers, and, making good their rush, they seized the two most advanced horse artillery guns. With the exception of two companies of Jacob's Rifles, which had caused me great anxiety by their unsteadiness early in the day, the conduct of the troops had been splendid up to this point; but now, at the critical moment, when a firm resistance might have achieved a victory, the infantry gave way, and, commencing from the left, rolled up, like a wave, to the right. After vainly endeavouring to rally them, I went for the cavalry.... The 3rd Light Cavalry and the 3rd Sind Horse were retiring slowly on our left, and I called upon them to charge across our front and so give the infantry an opportunity of reforming; but the terrible artillery fire to which they had been exposed, and from which they had suffered so severely, had so shaken them that General Nuttall was unable to give effect to my order. All was now over....
Extract from Report by Lieutenant-General Primrose, Commanding 1st Division Southern Afghanistan Field Force (p. 156).
I would most respectfully wish to bring to the Commander-in-Chief's notice the gallant and determined stand made by the officers and men of the 66th Regiment at Maiwand.... 10 officers and 275 non-commissioned officers and men were killed, and 2 officers and 30 non-commissioned officers and men wounded. These officers and men nearly all fell fighting desperately for the honour of their Queen and country. I have it on the authority of a Colonel of Artillery of Ayub Khan's army that a party of the 66th Regiment, which he estimated at one hundred officers and men, made a most determined stand in a garden. They were surrounded by the whole Afghan Army, and fought on until only eleven men were left, inflicting enormous loss upon the enemy. These eleven charged out of the garden, and died with their faces to the foe, fighting to the death. Such was the nature of their charge and the grandeur of their bearing that, although the whole of the Ghazis were assembled around them, not one dared approach to cut them down. Thus standing in the open, back to back, firing steadily and truly, every shot telling, surrounded by thousands, these eleven officers and men died; and it was not until the last man had been shot down that the Ghazis dared advance upon them.
Source.—The Times, June 25.
We may regard the episode of Tuesday's resolution, and its natural sequence in the imprisonment of Mr. Bradlaugh for defying the authority of the House, as now at an end.... We regret unfeignedly, as we have all along done, that Mr. Bradlaugh was not permitted to make affirmation, instead of taking an oath, when he first asked to be allowed to do so.... But opportunity of creating a precedent consonant with reason and common sense has been let slip, and in default of a reasonable precedent the only manly course now seems to be to supply its place by fresh legislation. If the personal question of Mr. Bradlaugh and his very unsavoury opinions can once be got out of the way, there are probably very few members of the House of Commons, and very few sensible Englishmen, however strong their religious opinions, who would not acknowledge the anomaly, the inexpediency, and the injustice of making the Parliamentary oath of allegiance more stringent and more exclusive than the existing statutory provisions for securing truth of testimony and uprightness of conduct.
Employers' Liability.
Source.—The Times, July 3.
The fact is that considerations of risk are not uniformly present to servants when they are hired, and that the miner or railway guard generally contracts on the assumption in his own mind that he will be lucky, and will not be injured. The impulse to such Bills as Mr. Brassey's, Earl De La Warr's, and the measure introduced by the Government, is the inability of many people to see any good reason why, if a master is liable for the acts of his servant towards a stranger, he should be irresponsible when someone, fully clothed with his authority, and acting with all his power to enforce obedience, injures a so-called fellow-servant, who, perhaps, did not know of the existence of this vice-principal, and who never, in fact, consented to endure without complaint what might befall him by reason of the negligence of the latter. Perhaps in theory it is entirely wrong to make a master in any case liable for the acts of his servants. It is hard to give any good reason for this portion of our common law. Perhaps this species of responsibility, when historically examined, will be proved to be a shoot from the Roman law of master and slave, which has been unintelligently grafted on a law governing the relations of men who are free. It matters not, however, how employers came to incur their present liability to strangers for the acts of their workmen. The question is whether it is right or worth while retaining an exception to the general law of master and servant. The question has become one, not of principle, but of details.... The Government Bill starts from the principle that workmen may claim redress when they are injured in consequence of defective works or machinery, or of the negligence of any person in the service of the employer, who has superintendence entrusted to him.... It will be highly expedient to endeavour to express more clearly a law which must annually be set in motion in hundreds of cases.
Funded Municipal Debt.
Source.—The Times, September 2.
A subject of great interest was discussed at yesterday's meeting of the Liverpool City Council. In seconding a recommendation of the Finance Committee that the settlement of the prospectus and terms of issue of the first £2,000,000 of stock to be created under the Liverpool Loans Act be referred to that Committee, Alderman A. B. Forwood explained that the Bill had now passed both Houses.... It had been a very difficult and intricate matter to get the Bill through, because the Liverpool Corporation were the first in the kingdom to obtain powers to fund their debt in the way proposed. He believed that, when the new water scheme was passed, the new mode of raising money would materially reduce the cost of money to the town, and would effect the saving of £25,000 to £30,000 a year. The stock would be put in exactly the same position as Consols.
Electric Light, The Telephone, New Hotels.
Source.—The Times.
January 5.—The last American mail has brought us interesting details relating to the progress made in manipulating the electric light. Pending the researches in which Professor Edison has for a long time been engaged, it appears that his laboratory at Menlo Park was practically closed to all strangers, until the young scientist should have arrived at a point to enable him to declare that complete success had attended his final efforts. That point has apparently been reached.... The steadiness, reliability, and non-fusibility of the carbon filament, Mr. Edison tells us, are not the only elements incident to the new discovery. There is likewise obtained an element of proper and uniform resistance to the passage of the electric current.
April 10.—Several chambers in the Temple will shortly possess the advantage of having communication by telephone with the Law Courts at Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. The telephonic apparatus is at present being laid down between the Temple Gardens and Westminster Hall, the Metropolitan District Railway being utilized for the purpose. The apparatus, after having been connected with several of the chambers and offices in the Temple, enters the underground railway line, which it is carried along, immediately under the crown of the railway arch.
May 31.—That the Lord Mayor should in his official capacity have lent his presence to the opening of the Grand Hotel at Charing Cross, as he did on Saturday evening, implies that the new undertaking possesses a more than private character. So, in fact, it does. If it cannot be said altogether to open a new era in the history of hotels in this country, it makes at least a distinct advance in the character of English hotel accommodation.... The distinctively English hotel is a dismal and cheerless place, where one feels cut off from all human sympathy. Of late years there has been a tendency in London to adopt Continental ways, but the improvement has seldom been carried much further than the establishment of a table d'hÔte. The Grand Hotel is an ambitious attempt to rival the best European and American models.
Source.—Freeman's Journal, September 9 (Report of a speech by Parnell at Ennis).
Depend upon it that the measure of the Land Bill of next session will be the measure of your activity and energy this winter; it will be the measure of your determination not to pay unjust rents; it will be the measure of your determination to keep a firm grip of your homesteads; it will be the measure of your determination not to bid for farms from which others have been evicted, and to use the strong force of public opinion to deter any unjust men among yourselves—and there are many such—from bidding for such farms. If you refuse to pay unjust rents, if you refuse to take farms from which others have been evicted, the Land Question must be settled, and settled in a way that will be satisfactory to you. It depends, therefore, upon yourselves, and not upon any Commission or any Government. When you have made this question ripe for settlement, then, and not till then, will it be settled.... Now what are you to do to a tenant who bids for a farm from which another tenant has been evicted? [Several voices, "Shoot him!"] I think I heard somebody say, "Shoot him!" I wish to point out to you a very much better way—a more Christian and charitable way—which will give the lost man an opportunity of repenting. When a man takes a farm from which another has been unjustly evicted, you must show him on the roadside when you meet him, you must show him in the streets of the town, you must show him in the shop, you must show him in the fair-green and in the market-place, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him alone, by putting him into a moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of his country as if he were the leper of old—you must show him your detestation of the crime he has committed.
Source.—The Times, November 10.
Captain Boycott's case, from the time when attention was first drawn to it, has inspired general and increasing interest, which in the north of Ireland has taken the practical form of the relief expedition despatched yesterday to the shores of Lough Mask. It is well understood on both sides that the persecution of Captain Boycott is only a typical instance of the system by which the peasantry are attempting to carry into effect the instructions of the Land League. Into the merits of Captain Boycott's relations with the tenants on Lord Erne's estates it is quite unnecessary to enter. He has been beleaguered in his house near Ballinrobe; he is excluded from intercourse, not merely with the people around him, but with the neighbouring towns; his crops are perishing, because such is the organized intimidation in the district that no labourers would dare to be seen working in his fields. It is certain that any ordinary workman whom Captain Boycott might hire would be subjected to brutal violence, as indeed has already happened to servants and others who ventured even to fetch his letters for him from the nearest post-office.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Transvaal," C 2,838 of 1881, p. 10.
To the Administrator of the Transvaal.
Excellency,
In the name of the people of the South African Republic we come to you to fulfil an earnest but unavoidable duty. We have the honour to send you a copy of the Proclamation promulgated by the Government and Volksraad, and universally published. The wish of the people is clearly to be seen therefrom, and requires no explanation from us. We declare in the most solemn manner that we have no desire to spill blood, and that from our side we do not wish war. It lies in your hands to force us to appeal to arms in self-defence. Should it come so far, which may God prevent, we will do so with the utmost reverence for Her Majesty the Queen of England and her flag. Should it come so far, we will defend ourselves with a knowledge that we are fighting for the honour of Her Majesty, for we fight for the sanctity of treaties sworn by Her, but broken by Her officers. However, the time for complaint is past, and we wish now alone from your Excellency co-operation for an amicable solution of the question on which we differ.... In 1877 our then Government gave up the keys of the Government offices without bloodshed. We trust that your Excellency, as representative of the noble British nation, will not less nobly and in the same way place our Government in the position to assume the administration.
We have, etc.,
S. J. P. Kruger (Vice-President).
M. W. Pretorious.
P. J. Joubert.
(Triumvirate.)
J. P. Mare.
C. J. Joubert.
E. J. P. Jorissen.
W. Edward Bok (Acting State Secretary).
Heidelberg,
December 16, 1880.
Proclamation.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Transvaal," C 2,838 of 1881, p. 11.
In the name of the people of the South African Republic. With prayerful look to God we, S. J. P. Kruger, Vice-President, M. W. Pretorious, and P. J. Joubert, appointed by the Volksraad in its session of the 13th December, 1880, as the Triumvirate to carry on temporarily the supreme administration of the Republic, make known:
We thus give notice to everyone that on the 13th day of December of the year 1880 the Government has been re-established; the Volksraad has resumed its sitting....
And it is further generally made known that from this day the whole country is placed in a state of siege and under the stipulations of the War Ordinance....
Source.—The Times, January 17.
We give this morning an account from our correspondent at Pretoria of the meeting held by the Boers last month for the purpose of protesting against the annexation of the Transvaal. The report of the proceedings leaves no doubt of the extent and nature of Boer disaffection.... That the annexation of the Transvaal may have been necessary when the step was taken may be admitted without prejudice to the question whether its permanent occupation and administration by British authority is desirable or not. When Sir Theophilus Shepstone annexed the territory, the Government was disorganized, the Treasury was bankrupt, the Republican troops were hopelessly demoralized, and the whole district was threatened by two powerful native chiefs, the weaker of whom had proved his superiority to any force which the Boers could bring against him. Now Cetywayo and Secocoeni are captives, and the whole border is tranquil. We have done for the Boers what it is certain they could not have done for themselves, and we have placed the security of the South African Colonies beyond all reasonable fear. Hence it might be argued that the reasons which compelled the temporary annexation of the Transvaal are no longer applicable in favour of its permanent occupation. It may be argued that we cannot recede where we have once advanced; certainly we cannot, where we have good reason to believe that our security requires that we should maintain our hold. But when our presence is manifestly unwelcome, and when the question of the best mode of guarding our security in future is at least an open one, it would be a very contemptible piece of national vanity to refuse to recede, simply because we had once found it necessary to advance in very different circumstances.
I.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Transvaal," C 2,998 of 1881.
Convention for the Settlement of the Transvaal Territory, signed at Pretoria, 1881.
Preamble: Her Majesty's Commissioners for the settlement of the Transvaal Territory, duly appointed as such by a Commission passed under the Royal Sign Manual and Signet, bearing date the 5th of April, 1881, do hereby undertake and guarantee on behalf of Her Majesty that, from and after the 8th day of August, 1881, complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors, will be accorded to the inhabitants of the Transvaal upon the following terms and conditions, and subject to the following reservations and limitations.
II.
Source.—The Times, August 5, 1881.
England can now have no desire to intrude herself upon the Transvaal. The more completely its people can get on without interference of any kind, the better pleased we shall be.... The occasion may come which will call for all the knowledge and discretion which our Government will have at its command. The Boers, if they are so disposed, may give trouble in a thousand ways. The question may be continually arising whether the point has yet been reached at which active interference is called for, or whether it may be the prudent and better course to let things be. The fact is that between England and the Transvaal there is no natural connection whatever. The bond which unites them is an artificial one, and though it is too early to anticipate the time at which it will be severed, we are sure that at no time will it be found strong enough to bear a violent strain. The strain may never come. The Convention, which has been entered upon in due form, and with all solemnity, may remain to all intents and purposes a dead letter as to the chief part of its provisions, and may thus pass quietly into the great limbo to which all monstrous political births must some day come. It will be by the fault of the Boers that we can be driven to put an active interpretation upon it. It contains terms which we cannot suffer to be disregarded.
Source.—The Times, January 12.
Extract from a Memorial to the Archbishop of Canterbury, signed by various Deans, Canons, etc.
... The immediate need of our Church is, in our opinion, a tolerant recognition of divergent ritual practice; but we feel bound to submit to your Grace that our present troubles are likely to recur, unless the Courts by which ecclesiastical causes are decided in the first instance and on appeal can be so constructed as to secure the conscientious obedience of clergymen who believe the constitution of the Church of Christ to be of Divine appointment, and who protest against the State's encroachment upon Rights assured to the Church of England by solemn Acts of Parliament....
Source.—The Times, February 3.
About nine o'clock in the morning Mr. Gladstone, Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Dodson, Sir Stafford Northcote, and Sir R. Cross entered the House amid cheers. While Mr. Biggar was continuing his observations on the Land League the Speaker resumed the Chair amid loud cheering. The Speaker, without calling on the hon. member to proceed with his remarks, at once said: "The motion for leave to bring in the Person and Property Protection (Ireland) Bill has now been under discussion for five days. The present sitting, having commenced on Monday last, has continued till Wednesday morning, a period of no less than forty-one hours, the House having been occupied with discussions upon repeated motions for adjournment. However tedious these discussions were, they were carried to a division by small minorities in opposition to the general sense of the House. A necessity has thus arisen which demands the interposition of the Chair (cheers). The usual rule has been proved powerless to insure orderly debate. An important measure, recommended in Her Majesty's Speech, and declared to be urgent in the interests of the State by a decisive majority, has been impeded by the action of an inconsiderable minority of members who have resorted to those modes of obstruction which have been recognized by the House as a Parliamentary offence. The credit and authority of this House are seriously threatened, and it is necessary they should be vindicated. Under the operation of the accustomed rules and methods of procedure the legislative powers of the House are paralyzed. A new and exceptional course is imperatively demanded, and I am satisfied that I shall best carry out the wish of the House if I decline to call upon any more members to speak, and at once put the question to the House."
The Speaker then put the question, when there appeared—
The Speaker then put the main question, that leave be given to bring in the Bill, when Mr. J. McCarthy rose to speak, but the Speaker declined to hear him, and there were loud cries of "Order" on the Ministerial side of the House. The Home Rulers stood up, and for some time, with raised hand, shouted, "Privilege!" and then, having bowed to the Chair, left the House.
I.
Source.—The Times, April 20.
The end really corresponded to the beginning, and both were alike exceptional.... It must have been an ideal and living world that home life introduced Benjamin Disraeli to. It was in this that he acquired his repertory of parts and character; his caps fit for wearers; his motley for those it suited; his titles of little honour; his stage tricks and artifices; his gibes and jests that Yorick might have overflowed with in the spirit of his age; and his unfailing consciousness of a knowledge and power ever sufficient for the occasion.... The new deliverer of the Conservatives presented himself as a magician, master of many spells, charged with all the secrets of the political creation, ready to control the winds and the tides of opinion and faction, sounding the very depths of political possibility, and with a touch of his wand able to leave a mark on any foe or wanton intruder. The plea was necessity. Fortunately for Lord Beaconsfield, the age of consistency is no more. Sir Robert Peel destroyed that idol, and in doing so sacrificed himself. Lord Beaconsfield advanced to power over his body.
II.
Source.—The Times, April 22, 1881.
It is finely said by Bacon of death that "it openeth the gate to good fame and extinguisheth envy...." It is singularly true of Lord Beaconsfield, whose fate it was to interest all men, to puzzle most, and to provoke the antagonism of many. Certainly no English statesman, since the death of Lord Palmerston, has occupied so prominent a position or excited so deep an interest on the Continent of Europe. His secret lay perhaps in the magnetic influence of a dauntless will, in his unrivalled powers of patience, in his impenetrable reserve and detachment. If we compare the beginning of his political life with its close, and note how its unchastened audacity was gradually toned down into the coolest determination and the most dispassionate tenacity, we shall see how the magnificent victory he achieved over himself gave him power to govern others, to withstand their opposition, and to bend their wills to his own. This is what Continental observers saw in him—unrivalled strength of will and dauntless tenacity of purpose—and this is why they admired him. The sense of mystery engendered the sense of power, and foreigners freely admired where Englishmen were often puzzled and at times almost bewildered.
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 259, C 49-74 (House of Lords debate on the withdrawal from Candahar, March 3, 1881).
The Earl of Lytton: ... And now, my Lords, allow me to recapitulate the conclusions which appear to me established by the facts to which I have solicited your attention. On the strength of these facts I affirm once more that Russian influence at Cabul did not commence with the Stolieteff mission, and that it did not cease with the withdrawal of that mission. I affirm that for all practical purposes the Ameer of Cabul had ceased to be the friend and ally of England, and that he had virtually become the friend and ally of Russia at least three years before I had any dealings with His Highness, or any connection with the government of India. I affirm that the sole cause of the late Afghan war was a Russian intrigue of long duration, for purposes which it was the imperative duty of the Government of India to oppose at any cost. And, finally, I affirm that the establishment of Russian influence was caused by the collapse and paralysis of British influence at Cabul, and that this was the natural result of the deplorable policy to which Her Majesty's Government are now so eagerly reverting.... Surely, my Lords, prevention is better than cure. Surely it is wiser and safer to stay at Candahar, whence we can exclude Russian influence from Herat by peaceably extending our own influence in that direction, than to retire to the Indus, and there passively await an event which is to involve us in a great European war, for the purpose of undoing what could not otherwise have been done in a remote corner of Asia. The noble Duke, the Lord Privy Seal, has expressed his astonishment at the prodigious importance I now attach to the retention of Candahar, because, he says, I did not hold that opinion till a late period of my Viceroyalty. That is true—I did not. But in the statement which elicited this remark I thought I had explained the reason why. I can sincerely assure your Lordships that the late Government of India was not an annexationist Government. As long as we had any reasonable hope of loyalty on the part of Yakub Khan, or of the observance of the Gandamak Treaty, which gave us moral guarantees of adequate control over Afghanistan, our wish was not to weaken but to strengthen the Cabul Power. But the whole situation, and our duty concerning it, were changed irrevocably by the atrocious crime which compelled us to occupy Cabul, and by the revelations discovered at Cabul, and now known to your Lordships, of the extent to which Russian influence had penetrated to the very heart of the country. My Lords, it then seemed to my colleagues in the Government of India, and it still seems to me, that the only practical means of counteracting the dangerous Russian influence at Cabul would be to assume ourselves over Western Afghanistan a controlling and commanding position, not dependent on the good or bad faith of any Cabul ruler. Such control can only be exercised from Candahar. The history of the last eight years clearly shows, not merely that the Russian Power is approaching, and must approach, towards India, but that Russia has long sought, is still seeking, and will continue to seek, great political influence over Afghanistan; that this influence has already found a fulcrum at Cabul, and that it must be a permanent source of disquiet to the Government of India, whenever she wishes to embarrass British policy in Europe. Therefore, for the safety of the British Power in India, it is indispensable that the Government of India shall have the means of preventing—at all events, of counteracting—Russian influence in Afghanistan. It is absurd to suppose that you can have any controlling power over a country in which you have no locus standi at all. Now amongst the arrangements contemplated by Her Majesty's Government after the evacuation of Candahar, where do they expect to find a locus standi in Afghanistan? I do not see where.... Great as are the undisputed strategical advantages of Candahar, the late Government of India did not regard the retention of it primarily, or mainly, as a military question. We felt that it would give us a political and commercial control over Western Afghanistan up to Herat so complete that we might contemplate with unconcern the course of events at Cabul. If you retain Candahar, and hold it firmly and fearlessly, then you may view with indifference the uncertain faith and fate of Cabul rulers, and the certain advance of the Russian Power. If you retain Candahar, and administer it wisely, you will replace anarchy and bloodshed and difficulty and uncertainty on your own border by peace and prosperity; and if you connect Candahar by rail with the Valley of the Indus, you will be able to sweep the whole commerce of Central Asia, vastly augmented by the beneficent protection of a strong, a settled, and a civilized Government, into the harbours of Kurrachee and Calcutta, and thence into the ports of Liverpool and London. But, my Lords, you cannot do all this unless you retain a garrison in Candahar.... If you accept the conclusion admitted by the noble Duke, and affirmed by every Indian statesman, that Afghanistan must on no account be permitted to remain under the forbidden influence of Russia, then, my Lords, for the enforcement of that conclusion you must choose between the retention of Candahar and reliance on the instructions said to have been issued to General Kauffman "not to do it again." There is no alternative. To talk about developing the internal resources of India is nothing to the point. There is no reason why the continued development of India's internal resources should not proceed pari passu with the consolidation of her external securities. But do not fatten the lamb only to feed the wolf. My Lords, all those whose privilege it is to build up the noble edifice of India's prosperity must be content to labour like the builders of the second Temple—working with one hand, but holding the sword in the other to defend their work.
Source.—The Times, October 13.
For two years, or thereabouts, our towns have had frequent opportunities of witnessing an exhibition not to everybody's taste. The "Salvation Army," as far as it can be known to the uninitiated, consists of bands of men marching through the streets, generally towards "church time," with banners, devices, and sometimes emblematic helmets and other accoutrements, singing sensational hymns. Most people are ready to leave it alone. But there remain the irrepressible "roughs." It is with them that the "Salvation Army" is now waging its only physical warfare. English people generally would leave it to the test of time.... We must beware how we quarrel with those who honestly believe there is a great work to be done. If we do not like these singular modes of propagandism and conversion, we need not assist the "roughs" to put them down. Another course lies before us all. It is to do the work in a better way.
Source.—The Times, December 21.
Extract from a letter by Sir William Gregory.
... I called at Arabi Bey's house by appointment, and was very courteously received by a tall, athletic, soldier-like man. His countenance is peculiarly grave, and even stern, with much power in it. It is at first sight somewhat heavy, until he is aroused, when his eyes light up and he speaks with great energy.... He said that he looked on the Sultan as his lord—as the head of his religion—and that he was bound to do so; that the dominions of the Sultan were like a great palace, in which the different nations had each one its own chamber, suited to its wants, and arranged according to its own manner; that to introduce other persons into those chambers would be to upset the arrangements, to annoy and dispossess the occupants, and to do an unjust act; and he was therefore most decidedly opposed to any interference on the part of the Sultan in the government of Egypt, and every opposition would be given to the introduction of Turkish troops. Secondly, as regards the religious question, nothing could be more untrue than the allegations that he and those who went with him were in favour of any intolerant movement.... The next point was the accusation that he was aiming at establishing a military supremacy. This he denied, saying that an army has no right to be supreme in time of peace ... but it was obliged to take the lead in getting rid of abuses and establishing justice. Lastly, as to his desire to remove European officials from the country, he said he had no idea or wish to remove the Control to which his countrymen were indebted for the Justice which the cultivators now enjoy, at all events for the present, until Egypt knew how to govern herself, and could stand alone; but he spoke with the greatest bitterness of the manner in which his countrymen were ousted from every superior position in every department.... I next asked him if the opinion were prevalent that England desired to occupy Egypt. He said that he himself did not believe it. Egypt was looked upon as the centre of the Mohammedan world, and in every country where there was a Mussulman community there would be deep-seated indignation were she to be annexed, and probably the loss of India would be ultimately the consequence. Egypt, if left alone, would always protect the passage to India, which he knew to be our great object.
Cairo,
December 11.
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 266, col. 1,124, February 20, 1882.
Ordered: That, when it shall appear to Mr. Speaker or to the Chairman of Committee of the whole House, during any debate, to be the evident sense of the House or of the Committee, that the Question be now put, he may so inform the House or the Committee; and, if a motion be made, "That the Question be now put," Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman, shall forthwith put such question; and, if the same be decided in the affirmative, the Question under discussion shall be put forthwith; provided that the Question shall not be decided in the affirmative, if a division be taken, unless it shall appear to have been supported by more than 200 members, or to have been opposed by less than 40 members.
Source.—The Times, March 11.
A meeting convened by the Council of the International Monetary Standard Association was held in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansion House.
Mr. Grenfell, Governor of the Bank of England, said ... he presumed that all present knew that the standard of this country was a monometallic gold standard, and that it was introduced by that great statesman Sir Robert Peel; but it was not so generally known, and it was somewhat singular, that when Sir R. Peel brought forward the measure for the resumption of cash payments, and for the institution of a monometallic gold standard, he appealed to the House of Commons, by all the wish they had to act with good faith towards their creditors, that they should return to the ancient standard of the realm. He presumed that Sir R. Peel meant that the ancient standard of the realm was a gold standard; but it was not a monometallic standard at all. The ancient standard of the realm was a bimetallic standard, and although there had been a monometallic standard before, it was never a gold standard.... What were the events that had occurred since Sir R. Peel's death? They were entirely new. The first event was the calling together of a conference in Paris in 1868, for the purpose of attempting to govern the coinage of all nations, and unfortunately that conference came to the conclusion that the best of all standards was a monometallic gold standard. Very shortly afterwards there came the Franco-German War, and when a large quantity of the gold of France passed into the hands of Germany, that Government decided to make a gold standard. Scarcely had that been done, when the evil arising from the great monetary revolution began to be shown.... Had they calculated what the cost of the demonetization of Germany was? The amount the German Government coined was 87,000,000 sterling of gold, which, according to the average for the last twenty years, was equal to 3.3 years of the whole world's production of gold. Besides that, Germany sold 28,000,000 sterling of silver, which was equal to more than two years' production of the whole world of that metal. What did they think, supposing the Latin Union, our Indian Empire, and the United States were to resort to some such measure as Germany did?
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 272, col. 724, July 17, 1882.
A Gladstonian Fine Distinction.
Mr. Gladstone: ... This is not an occasion for arguing the question of the differences that have unhappily arisen between my right hon. friend and those who were, and rejoiced to be, his colleagues. But I venture to assure him that I agree with him in thinking that the moral law is as applicable to the conduct of nations as of individuals, and that the difference between us, most painful to him and most painful to us, is a difference as to the particular application in this particular case of the Divine law.
Source.—The Times, March 5.
Four weeks have elapsed since we first called attention to the disapprobation and discontent excited among the English residents in India by the Bill for subjecting them to the criminal jurisdiction of native judges and magistrates. The measure, of which we then pointed out the dangers, has since assumed a portentous importance. The whole non-official European community has been convulsed by it.... As for the asserted symmetry which is to follow from it, and the asserted inequalities which it is to remove, it will not, and cannot, do what it has been credited with doing. It removes one inequality while it leaves a dozen others untouched, and the inequality which it does remove is just that which is most clearly justifiable. It is a pandering, we will not say to native opinion, for no such opinion has been formed for it, but to the noisily expressed views of the native Press, and of one or two native civil servants, who are anxious to exercise the powers which the Bill confers, and who are on that very account so much the less fit to be trusted with them.... The Bill may be unimportant in itself, but it is one among many signs of the new ideas and new principles upon which the Government of India is to be conducted, ideas and principles which are utterly at variance with those by which our position in the country has been gained and held.
Source.—The Times, March 16.
A terrific explosion occurred last night at the offices of the Local Government Board, Parliament Street, Westminster. The report was heard about half a minute after nine o'clock in the House of Commons. So great was the force of the explosion that the floor of the House and the galleries shook. At the time there was but a thin attendance of members, it being the dinner hour. The Duke of Edinburgh was in the Peers' Gallery, and he turned round at once and spoke to Sir Henry Fletcher, who was sitting near him. The Speaker rang his bell, and inquired the cause of the alarm.... The explosion occurred in the ground floor of the Local Government Board, smashing the stonework into splinters, and breaking into fragments the windows, portions of which lay strewn in the surrounding streets. Alarmed crowds gathered.
Source.—Sir Reginald Wingate's Mahdiism and the Egyptian Soudan, pp. 2, 5, 12-14. (Macmillans.)
Mahdiism, with which we have to deal, has two sides to it. There is the Mahdi, whose coming is looked forward to by good Sunnis as the advent of the Messiah is expected by the Jews. And there is the Mahdi who disappeared, and may appear miraculously at any moment to good Shias.... Mohammed Ahmed of Dongola took up Mahdiism from the Shia's point of view.... His movement was, in the first place, a religious movement—the superior enthusiasm, eloquence, and dramatic knowledge of one priest over his fellows. It was recruited by a desire, widespread among the villagers, and especially among the superstitious masses of Kordofan, for revenge for the cruelties and injustice of the Egyptians and Bashi-Bazuks. It swept into force on the withdrawal of all semblance of government, the sole element opposed to it, and it became a tool for the imperious and warlike Baggara, and enabled them to usurp the vacant throne. Religion has thus knit together the different races, each with their own grievance, and summoned them to the banner of emirs in search of power and the right to trade in slaves.... There is no doubt that, until he was ruined by unbridled sensuality, this man [Mohammed Ahmed] had the strongest head and the clearest mental vision of any man in the two million square miles of which he more or less made himself master before he died; and it is a matter of regret that more cannot be learnt of his early youth than what follows. Born at Dongola in 1848, of a family of excellent boat-builders, whose boats are to this day renowned for sound construction, he was early recognized by his family as the clever one, and, so to speak, went into the Church. At twenty-two he was already a sheikh with a great reputation for sanctity, and his preaching was renowned far and wide. Men wept and beat their breasts at his moving words; even his brother fikis could not conceal their admiration. The first steps of the Mahdi in his career are of genuine interest. Tall, rather slight, of youthful build, and, like many Danagla, with large eyes and pleasing features, Mohammed Ahmed bore externally all the marks of a well-bred gentleman. He moved about with quiet dignity of manner, but there was nothing unusual about him until he commenced to preach. Then, indeed, one understood the power within him which men obeyed. With rapid earnest words he stirred their hearts, and bowed their heads like corn beneath the storm. And what a theme was his! No orator in France in 1792 could speak of oppression that here in the Soudan was not doubled. What need of description when he could use denunciation; when he could stretch forth his long arm and point to the tax-gatherer who twice, three times, and yet again, carried off the last goat, the last bundle of dhurra straw, from yon miserable man listening with intent eyes! And then he urges in warning tones what Whitfield, Wesley, have urged before him, that all this misery, all this oppression, is God's anger at the people's wickedness. That since the Prophet left the earth the world has all fallen into sin and neglect. But now a time was at hand when all this should have an end. The Lord would send a deliverer who should sweep away the veil before their eyes, clear the madness from the brain, the hideous dream would be broken for ever, and, strong in the faith of their divine leader, these new-made men, with clear-seeing vision and well-laid plans before them, should go forth and possess the land. The cursed tax-gatherer should be driven into holes and caves, the bribe-taking official hunted from off the field he had usurped, and the Turk should be thrown to jabber his delirium on his own dunghill. With the coming of the Mahdi the right should triumph, and all oppression should have an end. When would this Mahdi come? What wonder that every hut and every thicket echoed the longing for the promised Saviour! The hot wind roamed from desert to plain of withered grass, from mountain range to sandy valley, and whispered "Mahdi" as it blew; all nature joined; how childish, yet how effective. The women found the eggs inscribed with "Jesus," "Mohammed," and the "Mahdi." The very leaves rustled down to the ground, and in their fall received the imprint of the sacred names. The land was sown with fikis, many of them past masters in the art of swaying a crowd. They came and listened, and soon they recognized that they had found their master here. The leaven worked rapidly among them, until one evening at Abba Island, a hundred and fifty miles south of Khartoum, there came a band of self-reliant men who heard the stirring words, and saw the tall, slight, earnest figure. They said, "You are our promised leader," and in solemn secrecy he said, "I am the Mahdi."
[Note.—Mahdi signifies "the guided" in the hadaya or true way of salvation, hence "the guide." In the tenets of all sects of the Moslems there is an intimate connection between the Mahdi and Jesus Christ.]
Source.—The Times, July 31.
James Carey has not long escaped those who, it was well known, had resolved to slay him at the first opportunity. According to telegrams received from Durban and Cape Town he was shot dead on Sunday, on board the liner Melrose, by an Irishman named O'Donnell. The vessel had got into harbour at Port Elizabeth, and was discharging her passengers and cargo, when Carey was shot. Fully warned of the intention to murder him, the authorities at Dublin had taken pains to conceal his movements. When he quitted Kilmainham, it was stated that he had resolved to brave the worst, and settle down in Dublin to his old occupations. Then it was said that he had been seen in London. According to another account he had sailed for Canada, and had actually landed at Montreal under the escort of two detectives. If these tales were circulated with the hope of putting the Invincibles on a false scent, they signally failed. His enemies were too astute to be deceived by pious frauds. Carey's death is a public misfortune. He had indeed been a principal in a cruel and barbarous murder. He behaved with supreme callousness and repulsive levity throughout the trials; and he was in every way one of the worst specimens of a bad type. But he was the instrument by which the Phoenix Park murderers were brought to justice, and it would have been well had he lived to defy the machinations of the Invincibles. But this misfortune is only a consequence of facts which, as a rule, serve as a safeguard and protection to society. Gibbon has forcibly described the unhappy condition of the wretch who tried to flee from the power of a Roman Emperor. There was no escape from it: he confronted it wherever he fled. No better are the chances of flight of one who, in these days of publicity, of photographs and illustrated newspapers, tries to hide himself from the gaze of those who know him. All this told against Carey's chances of escape. He had made himself the object of bitter hatred of secret societies, which have ramifications through many parts of the world. During the long trials at Dublin, portraits of him in all attitudes were published. His very marked features became familiar to everyone. Disguise himself as he might—and it is stated that when he was shot he was disguised—he could not help being recognized wherever he went.
Source.—Sir Reginald Wingate's Mahdiism and the Egyptian Soudan, pp. 85, 88-90. (Macmillans.)
Mohammed Ahmed, on hearing of the departure of the army of Hicks Pasha from Khartoum, sent spies to watch their movements, and on learning that the latter had arrived at Duem, and intended advancing on El Obeid, he sent a force of 3,000 men under the emir Abd el Halim and Abu Girgeh to follow in rear of the Egyptian army and close up the wells as they advanced, so that retreat would be impossible. Abd el Halim, on arrival at Rahad, at once rode off to El Obeid and personally informed the Mahdi of the strength and probable movements of the Egyptian force. On receipt of this news Mohammed Ahmed forthwith despatched all his fighting men towards Rahad to join Abd el Halim's force, but on their way they met Abd el Halim retiring from Alluba, and, having joined him, the whole force, amounting to some 40,000, encamped in the forest of Shekan, and there awaited the advance of the Egyptian troops.... At 10 a.m. on Monday morning, November 5, the troops marched out of the zariba and formed up in three squares, the whole formation resembling a triangle. Each square had its own transport and ammunition in the centre. Hicks Pasha with his staff led the way, followed by four guns of the artillery, then the first square, which was supported to the right and left rear by the other two squares, some 300 yards distant from the square and from each other. Ala ed Din Pasha commanded the right square and Selim Bey the left. The exposed flanks of the squares were covered by cavalry, and a detachment of horsemen brought up the rear. In this formation the troops steadily advanced, and half an hour later reached a fairly open valley, interspersed here and there with bush, while on either side were thick woods full of the enemy.... Now all was ready, and Mohammed Ahmed patiently awaited the arrival of the troops, which could already be seen advancing in the distance. He assembled his emirs for the last final instructions, and, rising from his prayer, drew his sword, shouted three times, "Allahu akbar! You need not fear, for the victory is ours." On came the squares. The first had reached the wooded depression, when up sprang the Arabs with their fierce yells. Startled and surprised, the square was broken in a moment. The flanking squares now fired wildly at the Arabs fighting hand to hand with the Egyptians, and in their efforts must have killed numbers of their own comrades. But almost at the same instant the Arabs simultaneously attacked from the woods on both sides and from front and rear. The wildest confusion followed; squares fired on each other, on friends or enemies. While the surging mass of Arabs now completely encircled the force and gradually closed in on them, a massacre of the most appalling description took place. In little over quarter of an hour all was over. Hicks Pasha with his staff, seeing that he could do nothing, cut his way through on the left and reached some cultivated ground. Here he was surrounded by some Baggara horsemen, and for a time kept them at bay, fighting most gallantly till his revolver was empty, and then committing most terrible execution with his sword. He was the last of the Europeans to fall, and one savage charge he made on his assailants is memorable to this day in the Soudan, and a body of Baggara who fled before him were called by their tribesmen "Baggar Hicks," or the cows driven by Hicks. But at last he fell, pierced by the spear of the Khalifa Mohammed Sherif. His cavalry bodyguard fought gallantly, and though repeatedly called on to surrender replied, "We shall never surrender, but will die like our officers, and kill many of you as well." And soon all were killed. Ala ed Din Pasha was killed trying to make his way from the right square to join Hicks Pasha. Genawi Bey lay dead in the square beside his horse. It is said that as he fell mortally wounded he, with his own sword, hamstrung his horse, saying, "No other shall ever ride on you after me." The whole force, with the exception of some 300 men, and most of these wounded, had now been completely annihilated.... The news of the Mahdi's victory spread far and wide, and if there had been some doubts previous to what was now termed a miracle, the complete annihilation of a whole army soon dispelled them, and from the Red Sea to the confines of Waddai the belief was universal that at last the true Mahdi had appeared.
[Note.—Sir R. Wingate's account is quoted from two sources—one, Mohammed Nur el Barudi, who was cook to Hicks Pasha, and was one of the wounded prisoners after the battle; and the other, Hassan Habashi, a former Government official at El Obeid, who had fallen into the Mahdi's hands on the capture of that place. Hence the story is complete on both sides.]
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Transvaal," C 3,947 of 1884, p. 47.
A Convention between Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the South African Republic.
Whereas the Government of the Transvaal State, through its delegates, consisting of Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, President of the said State, Stephanus Jacobus Du Toit, Superintendent of Education, and Nicholas Jacobus Smit, a member of the Volksraad, have represented that the Convention signed at Pretoria on the 13th day of August, 1881, and ratified by the Volksraad of the said State on the 25th October, 1881, contains certain provisions which are inconvenient, and imposes burdens and obligations from which the said State is desirous to be relieved, and that the south-western boundaries fixed by the said Convention should be amended, with a view to promote the peace and good order of the said State and of the countries adjacent thereto; and whereas Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland has been pleased to take the said representations into consideration.
Now, therefore, Her Majesty has been pleased to direct, and it is hereby declared, that the following articles of a new Convention, signed on behalf of Her Majesty by Her Majesty's High Commissioner in South Africa, the Right Honourable Sir Hercules George Herbert Robinson, Knight Grand Cross of the most distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and on behalf of the Transvaal State (which shall hereinafter be called the South African Republic) by the above-named delegates, Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, Stephanus Jacobus Du Toit, and Nicholas Jacobus Smit, shall, when ratified by the Volksraad of the South African Republic, be substituted for the articles embodied in the Convention of 3rd August, 1881; which latter, pending such ratification, shall continue in full force and effect.
[Note.—The word "Preamble" is not prefixed to the opening passage of this Convention. When the suzerainty question arose in 1898 the British argument was that the 1884 Convention only altered the articles of the 1881 Convention, and left the Preamble in force; the Boer argument was that the 1884 Convention had a preamble, and therefore the earlier one must have been superseded.]
I.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Egypt," No. 2 of 1884, C 3,845.
P. 2. The Cabinet's Instructions to General Gordon.
Her Majesty's Government are desirous that you should proceed at once to Egypt, to report to them on the military situation in the Soudan, and on the measures which it may be advisable to take for the security of the Egyptian garrisons still holding positions in that country, and for the safety of the European population in Khartoum. You are also desired to consider and report upon the best mode of effecting the evacuation of the interior of the Soudan, and upon the manner in which the safety and good administration by the Egyptian Government of the ports on the sea coast can best be secured. In connection with this subject, you should pay especial consideration to the question of the steps that may usefully be taken to counteract the stimulus which it is feared may possibly be given to the Slave Trade by the present insurrectionary movement and by the withdrawal of the Egyptian authority from the interior.
II.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Egypt," No. 6 of 1884, C 3,878.
Further Instructions by the Egyptian Government.
I have now to indicate to you the views of the Egyptian Government on two of the points to which your special attention was directed by Lord Granville. These are (1) the measures which it may be advisable to take for the security of the Egyptian garrisons still holding positions in the Soudan, and for the safety of the European population in Khartoum. (2) The best mode of effecting the evacuation of the interior of the Soudan. These two points are intimately connected, and may conveniently be considered together. It is believed that the number of Europeans at Khartoum is very small, but it has been estimated by the local authorities that some 10,000 to 15,000 people will wish to move northwards from Khartoum only when the Egyptian garrison is withdrawn. These people are native Christians, Egyptian employÉs, their wives and children, etc. The Government of His Highness the Khedive is earnestly solicitous that no effort should be spared to insure the retreat both of these people and of the Egyptian garrison without loss of life. As regards the most opportune time and the best method for effecting the retreat, whether of the garrisons or of the civil populations, it is neither necessary nor desirable that you should receive detailed instructions.... You will bear in mind that the main end to be pursued is the evacuation of the Soudan. This policy was adopted, after very full discussion, by the Egyptian Government, on the advice of Her Majesty's Government. It meets with the full approval of His Highness the Khedive, and of the present Egyptian Ministry. I understand, also, that you entirely concur in the desirability of adopting this policy, and that you think it should on no account be changed. You consider that it may take a few months to carry it out with safety. You are further of opinion that "the restoration of the country should be made to the different petty Sultans who existed at the time of Mehemet Ali's conquest, and whose families still exist"; and that an endeavour should be made to form a confederation of those Sultans. In this view the Egyptian Government entirely concur. It will, of course, be fully understood that the Egyptian troops are not to be kept in the Soudan merely with a view to consolidating the power of the new rulers of the country. But the Egyptian Government has the fullest confidence in your judgment, your knowledge of the country, and in your comprehension of the general line of policy to be pursued. You are, therefore, given full discretionary power to retain the troops for such reasonable period as you may think necessary, in order that the abandonment of the country may be accomplished with the least possible risk to life and property.
Sir E. Baring, in forwarding the copy of the instructions to Lord Granville, wrote:
I read the draft of the letter over to General Gordon. He expressed to me his entire concurrence in the instructions. The only suggestion he made was in connection with the passage in which, speaking of the policy of abandoning the Soudan, I had said, "I understand also that you entirely concur in the desirability of adopting this policy." General Gordon wished that I should add the words, "and that you think it should on no account be changed." These words were accordingly added.
III.
Source.—Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt, vol. i., p. 428. (Macmillans.)
Looking back at what occurred after a space of many years, two points are to my mind clear. The first is that no Englishman should have been sent to Khartoum. The second is that, if anyone had to be sent, General Gordon was not the right man to send. The reasons why no Englishman should have been sent are now sufficiently obvious. If he were beleaguered at Khartoum, the British Government might be obliged to send an expedition to relieve him. The main object of British policy was to avoid being drawn into military operations in the Soudan. The employment of a British official at Khartoum involved a serious risk that it would be no longer possible to adhere to this policy, and the risk was materially increased when the individual chosen to go to the Soudan was one who had attracted to himself a greater degree of popular sympathy than almost any Englishman of modern times.
I.
Source.—Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt, vol. i., p. 432. (Macmillans.)
I must, for the elucidation of this narrative, state why I think it was a mistake to send General Gordon to Khartoum. "It is impossible," I wrote privately to Lord Granville on January 28, 1884, "not to be charmed by the simplicity and honesty of Gordon's character." "My only fear," I added, "is that he is terribly flighty and changes his opinions very rapidly...." Impulsive flightiness was, in fact, the main defect of General Gordon's character, and it was one which, in my opinion, rendered him unfit to carry out a work which pre-eminently required a cool and steady head. I used to receive some twenty or thirty telegrams from General Gordon in the course of the day when he was at Khartoum, those in the evening often giving opinions which it was impossible to reconcile with others despatched the same morning. Scarcely, indeed, had General Gordon started on his mission, when Lord Granville, who does not appear at first to have understood General Gordon's character, began to be alarmed at his impulsiveness. On February 8 Lord Granville wrote to me: "I own your letters about Gordon rather alarm. His changes about Zobeir are difficult to understand. Northbrook consoles me by saying that he says all the foolish things that pass through his head, but that his judgment is excellent." I am not prepared to go so far as to say that General Gordon's judgment was excellent. Nevertheless, there was some truth in Lord Northbrook's remark. I often found that, amidst a mass of irrelevant verbiage and amidst many contradictory opinions, a vein of sound common sense and political instinct ran through General Gordon's proposals. So much was I impressed with this, and so fearful was I that the sound portions of his proposals would be rejected in London on account of the eccentric language in which they were often couched, that, on February 12, I telegraphed to Lord Granville: "In considering Gordon's suggestions, please remember that his general views are excellent, but that undue importance must not be attached to his words. We must look to the spirit rather than the letter of what he says."
II.
Source.—Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt, vol. i., p. 488. (Macmillans.)
On February 26th, thirty-nine days had elapsed since General Gordon had left London, thirty-one days since he had left Cairo, and eight days since he had arrived at Khartoum. During that period, leaving aside points of detail, as to which his contradictions had been numerous, General Gordon had marked out for himself no less than five different lines of policy, some of which were wholly conflicting one with another, whilst others, without being absolutely irreconcilable, differed in respect to some of their most important features. On January 18 he started from London with instructions which had been dictated by himself. His wish then was that he should be merely sent to "report upon the best means of effecting the evacuation of the interior of the Soudan." He expressed his entire concurrence in the policy of evacuation. This was the first and original stage of General Gordon's opinions. Before he arrived in Egypt, on January 24, he had changed his views as to the nature of the functions he should fulfil. He no longer wished to be a mere reporter. He wished to be named Governor-General of the Soudan with full executive powers. He supplemented his original ideas by suggesting that the country should be handed over to "the different petty Sultans who existed at the time of Mehemet Ali's conquest." This was the second stage of General Gordon's opinions. Fifteen days later (February 8) he wrote from Abu Hamed a memorandum in which he advocated "evacuation but not abandonment." The Government of Egypt were to "maintain their position as a Suzerain Power, nominate the Governor-General and Moudirs, and act as a supreme Court of Appeal." This was the third stage of General Gordon's opinions. Ten days later (February 18) General Gordon reverted to the principles of his memorandum of the 8th, but with a notable difference. It was no longer the Egyptian but the British Government which were to control the Soudan administration. The British Government were also to appoint a Governor-General, who was to be furnished with a British commission, and who was to receive a British decoration. Zobeir Pasha was the man whom General Gordon wished the British Government to select. This was the fourth stage of General Gordon's opinions. Eight days later (February 26), when General Gordon had learnt that the British Government were not prepared to approve of Zobeir Pasha being sent to the Soudan, he proposed that the Mahdi should be "smashed up," and that, to assist in this object, 200 British Indian troops should be sent to Wadi Halfa. This was the fifth stage of General Gordon's opinions. In thirty-nine days, therefore, General Gordon had drifted by successive stages from a proposal that he should report on the affairs of the Soudan to advocating the policy of "smashing up" the Mahdi. It would, he said, be "comparatively easy to destroy the Mahdi."
I.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Egypt," No. 12 of 1884.
P. 71. Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring. Telegraphic, Khartoum, February 18, 1884.
I have stated that to withdraw without being able to place a successor in my seat would be the signal for general anarchy throughout the country, which, though all Egyptian element was withdrawn, would be a misfortune and inhuman.... I distinctly state that if Her Majesty's Government gave a Commission to my successor, I recommend neither a subsidy nor men being given. I would select and give a Commission to some man, and promise him the moral support of Her Majesty's Government and nothing more.... As for the man, Her Majesty's Government should select one above all others—namely, Zobeir. He alone has the ability to rule the Soudan, and would be universally accepted by the Soudan. He should be made K.C.M.G., and given presents.... Zobeir's exile at Cairo for ten years, amidst all the late events, and his mixing with Europeans, must have had great effect on his character....
II.
P. 72. Extract from Sir E. Baring's Despatch commenting on the Above.
I believe Zobeir Pasha to be the only possible man. He undoubtedly possesses energy and ability, and has great local influence. As regards the Slave Trade, I discussed the matter with General Gordon when he was in Cairo, and he fully agreed with me in thinking that Zobeir Pasha's presence or absence would not affect the question in one way or the other. I am also convinced from many things that have come to my notice that General Gordon is right in thinking that Zobeir Pasha's residence in Egypt has considerably modified his character. He now understands what European power is, and it is much better to have to deal with a man of this sort than with a man like the Mahdi.... I cannot recommend that he should be promised the "moral support" of Her Majesty's Government. In the first place, he would scarcely understand the sense of the phrase, and, moreover, I do not think that he would attach importance to any support which was not material. It is for Her Majesty's Government to judge what the effect of his appointment would be upon public opinion in England, but except for that I can see no reason why Zobeir Pasha should not be proclaimed Ruler of the Soudan with the approbation of Her Majesty's Government.
III.
P. 95. Earl Granville to Sir E. Baring. February 22, 1884.
Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that the gravest objections exist to the appointment by their authority of a successor to General Gordon. The necessity does not, indeed, appear to have yet arisen of going beyond the suggestions contained in General Gordon's Memorandum of the 22nd ultimo, by making special provision for the government of the country. In any case the public opinion of this country would not tolerate the appointment of Zobeir Pasha.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Egypt," No. 12 of 1884.
P. 156. Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring. Khartoum, March 3, 1884.
... I am strongly against any permanent retention of the Soudan, but I think we ought to leave it with decency, and give the respectable people a man to lead them, around whom they can rally, and we ought to support that man by money and by opening road to Berber. Pray do not consider me in any way to advocate retention of Soudan; I am quite averse to it, but you must see that you could not recall me, nor could I possibly obey, until the Cairo employÉs get out from all the places. I have named men to different places, thus involving them with Mahdi: how could I look the world in the face if I abandoned them and fled? As a gentleman, could you advise this course? It may have been a mistake to send me up, but that having been done I have no option but to see evacuation through, for even if I was mean enough to escape I have no power to do so.
P. 161. The Same to the Same. Khartoum, March 9, 1884, 11.30 p.m.
If you mean to make the proposed diversion to Berber [of British troops], and to accept my proposal as to Zobeir, to install him in the Soudan and evacuate, then it is worth while to hold on to Khartoum. If, on the other hand, you determine on neither of these steps, then I can see no use in holding on to Khartoum, for it is impossible for me to help the other garrisons, and I shall only be sacrificing the whole of the troops and employÉs here. In this latter case your instructions to me had better be that I should evacuate Khartoum, and, with all the employÉs and troops, remove the seat of Government to Berber. You would understand that such a step would mean the sacrificing of all outlying places except Berber and Dongola. You must give a prompt reply to this, as even the retreat to Berber may not be in my power in a few days; and even if carried out at once, the retreat will be of extreme difficulty.
P. 161. Same Date, 11.40 p.m.
If the immediate evacuation of Khartoum is determined upon, irrespective of outlying towns, I would propose to send all Cairo employÉs and white troops with Colonel Stewart to Berber, where he would await your orders. I would also ask Her Majesty's Government to accept the resignation of my commission, and I would take all steamers and stores up to the Equatorial and Bahr Gazelle provinces, and consider those provinces as under the King of the Belgians.
[P. 160. Sir E. Baring comments that, owing to interruption of the telegraph line, these and other messages did not reach him till March 12. He instructed Gordon to hold on at Khartoum until he could communicate further with the British Government, and on no account to proceed to the Bahr Gazelle and Equatorial provinces.]
P. 152. Earl Granville to Sir E. Baring, March 13, 1884.
If General Gordon is of opinion that the prospect of his early departure diminishes the chance of accomplishing his task, and that by staying at Khartoum himself for any length of time which he may judge necessary he would be able to establish a settled Government at that place, he is at liberty to remain there. In the event of his being unable to carry out this suggestion, he should evacuate Khartoum and save that garrison by conducting it himself to Berber without delay.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Egypt," No. 13 of 1884, C 3,970.
P. 9. Sir E. Baring to Earl Granville. Cairo, April 8, 1884.
In a telegram from Khartoum, General Gordon says: I wish I could convey to you my impressions of the truly trumpery nature of this revolt, which 500 determined men could put down. Be assured, for present, and for two months hence, we are as safe here as at Cairo. If you would get, by good pay, 3,000 Turkish infantry and 1,000 Turkish cavalry, the affair, including crushing of Mahdi, would be accomplished in four months.
P. 12. Sir E. Baring to Earl Granville. Cairo, April 18, 1884.
Lately I have been sending telegrams to Berber to be forwarded to Gordon. Since communication between Berber and Khartoum was cut, his telegrams to me have taken from a week to ten days. My telegrams to him appear to have taken even longer, and some, I think, have not reached him at all.
The Same, Later.
I have received another telegram from Gordon.... It is most unfortunate that of all the telegrams I have sent to him only one very short one appears to have reached him. He evidently thinks he is to be abandoned, and is very indignant.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Egypt," C 3,998 of 1884.
P. 1. Gordon to Baring. Telegraphic. Khartoum, April 16, 1884, 5.15 p.m.
As far as I can understand, the situation is this: you state your intention of not sending any relief up here or to Berber, and you refuse me Zobeir. I consider myself free to act according to circumstances. I shall hold on here as long as I can, and if I can suppress the rebellion I shall do so. If I cannot, I shall retire to the Equator, and leave you indelible disgrace of abandoning garrisons of Senaar, Kassala, Berber, and Dongola, with the certainty that you will be eventually forced to smash up the Mahdi under great difficulties if you would retain peace in Egypt.
Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Egypt," C 3,970 of 1884.
P. 15. Earl Granville to Mr. Egerton, April 23, 1884.
Gordon should be at once informed, in cipher, by several messengers at some interval between each, through Dongola as well as Berber, or in such other way as may on the spot be deemed most prompt and certain, that he should keep us informed, to the best of his ability, not only as to immediate but as to any prospective danger at Khartoum; that to be prepared for any such danger he advise us as to the force necessary in order to secure his removal, its amount, character, route for access to Khartoum, and time of operation; that we do not propose to supply him with Turkish or other force for the purpose of undertaking military expeditions, such being beyond the scope of the commission he holds, and at variance with the pacific policy which was the purpose of his mission to the Soudan; that if with this knowledge he continues at Khartoum, he should state to us the cause and intention with which he so continues. Add expressions both of respect and gratitude for his gallant and self-sacrificing conduct, and for the good he has achieved.
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Egypt," No. 21 of 1884, C 4,005.
Mr. Egerton to Earl Granville. Cairo, May 10, 1884.
The messengers sent in succession by the Governor of Dongola with the ciphered message for Gordon have returned. He telegraphed yesterday that they report that the rebels have invested Khartoum; that, in consequence, excursions in steamers are made on the White Nile in order to attack those on the banks; that the rebels have constructed wooden shelters to protect themselves against the projectiles; when the Government forces pursue them into these shelters, the rebels take flight into the country beyond gun-shot; that this state of things makes it impossible to get into Khartoum.
Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Egypt," No. 22 of 1884, C 4,042.
Earl Granville to Mr. Egerton, May 17, 1884.
The following is the further message which Her Majesty's Government desires to communicate to General Gordon in addition to that contained in my telegram of the 23rd ultimo, which should be repeated to him. Having regard to the time which has elapsed, Her Majesty's Government desires to add to their communication of the 23rd April as follows: As the original plan for the evacuation of the Soudan has been dropped, and as aggressive operations cannot be undertaken with the countenance of Her Majesty's Government, General Gordon is enjoined to consider and either to report upon, or, if feasible, to adopt, at the first proper moment, measures for his own removal and that of the Egyptians at Khartoum who have suffered for him or who have served him faithfully, including their wives and children, by whatever route he may consider best, having especial regard to his own safety and that of the other British subjects. With regard to the Egyptians above referred to, General Gordon is authorized to make free use of money rewards or promises at his discretion. For example, he is at liberty to assign to Egyptian soldiers at Khartoum sums for themselves and for persons brought with them per head, contingent on their safe arrival at Korosko, or whatever point he may consider a place of safety; or he may employ or pay the tribes in the neighbourhood to escort them. In the event of General Gordon having despatched any persons or agents to other points, he is authorized to spend any money required for the purpose of recalling them or securing their safety.
I.
Source.—The Times, July 29.
Last night at eleven o'clock the British and African Royal Mail steamer Kinsembo arrived in Plymouth Sound, having on board Mr. H. M. Stanley, the African explorer. In the course of a conversation with a correspondent, Mr. Stanley declared that General Gordon might leave Khartoum whenever he chose, and had three routes of escape open to him. He was a soldier, but not a traveller. He would not leave Khartoum ingloriously. He could escape by means of the Congo, the Nile, and across the desert to Zanzibar. He could force his way through the country, because the people would be afraid of an armed force. He is perfectly well supplied with arms and ammunition, and is quite strong enough to meet the Mahdi. Mr. Stanley derides the suggested expedition to Khartoum, and says the men would die like flies when the summer is waning. He says that Gordon only requires to act like a soldier, as he believes he will, to settle the whole difficulty.
II.
Source.—Holland's Life of the Duke of Devonshire, vol. i., p. 472 et seq. (Longmans.)
On 29th July Lord Hartington circulated to the Cabinet his own final memorandum on the subject. He said: "I wish before Parliament is prorogued, and it becomes absolutely impossible to do anything for the relief of General Gordon, to bring the subject once more under the consideration of the Cabinet. On the last occasion when it was discussed, although an opinion was expressed that the balance of probability was that no expedition would be required to enable General Gordon and those dependent on him to leave Khartoum, I gathered that a considerable majority were in favour of making some preparations, and taking some steps which would make a relief expedition to Khartoum possible. I believe that I have already stated the grounds on which I think that if anything is now attempted it must be by the Valley of the Nile, and not by the Suakin-Berber line. The delay which has taken place makes it impossible that the railway should be constructed for any considerable distance on that line during the next autumn and winter, the period during which military operations would be practicable without great suffering and loss of life to the troops. The renewed concentration of the tribes under Osman Digna, near Suakin, and the fall of Berber, makes it inevitable that severe fighting would have to be done at both ends of the march, and, in consequence of the necessity of crossing the desert in small detachments, the engagement near Berber would be fought under great disadvantages. On the other hand, we have for the defence of the Nile itself been compelled to send a considerable force of British and Egyptian troops up the Nile; and the positions which are now occupied by those troops are so many stages on the advance by the Nile Valley.... The proposal which I make is that a brigade should be ordered to advance as soon as possible to Dongola by the Nile.... I have not entered into the question whether it is or is not probable that General Gordon can leave Khartoum without assistance. As we know absolutely nothing, any opinion on this subject can only be guess-work. But I do not see how it is possible to redeem the pledges which we have given, if the necessity should be proved to exist, without some such preparations and measures as those which I now suggest...." Mr. Chamberlain minuted that he was "against what is called an expedition, or the preparations for an expedition." He did not think that the information was sufficient to justify it. He thought that more information should first be obtained.... Mr. Gladstone minuted (July 31): "I confess it to be my strong conviction that to send an expedition either to Dongola or Khartoum at the present time would be to act in the teeth of evidence as to Gordon which, however imperfect, is far from being trivial, and would be a grave and dangerous error." Mr. Gladstone at the same time wrote to Lord Granville a letter, which the latter forwarded to Lord Hartington. He said: "I had intended to give much time to-day to collecting the sum of the evidence as to Gordon's position, which appears to me to be strangely underrated by some.... Undoubtedly I can be no party to the proposed despatch, as a first step, of a brigade to Dongola. I do not think the evidence as to Gordon's position requires or justifies, in itself, military preparations for the contingency of a military expedition. There are, however, preparations, perhaps, of various kinds which might be made, and which are matters simply of cost, and do not include necessary consequences in point of policy. To these I have never offered an insuperable objection, and the adoption of them might be, at the worst, a smaller evil than the evils with which we are threatened in other forms. This on what I may call my side. On the other hand, I hope I may presume that, while we are looking into the matters I have just indicated, nothing will be done to accelerate a Gordon crisis until we see, in the early days of next week, what the Conference crisis is to produce."
Source.—General Gordon's Journal, pp. 46, 56, 59, 93, 112. (Kegan Paul.)
September 17.—Had Zobeir Pasha been sent up when I asked for him, Berber would in all probability never have fallen, and one might have made a Soudan Government in opposition to the Mahdi. We choose to refuse his coming up because of his antecedents in re slave trade; granted that we had reason, yet as we take no precautions as to the future of these with respect to the slave trade, the above opposition seems absurd. I will not send up A. because he will do this, but will leave the country to B., who will do exactly the same.
September 19.—I was engaged in a certain work—i.e., to take down the garrisons, etc. It suited me altogether to accept this work (when once it was decided on to abandon the Soudan), which, to my idea, is preferable to letting it be under those wretched effete Egyptian Pashas. Her Majesty's Government agreed to send me. It was a mutual affair; they owe me positively nothing, and I owe them nothing. A member of Parliament, in one of our last received papers, asked "whether officers were not supposed to go where they were ordered?" I quite agree with his view, but it cannot be said I was ordered to go. The subject was too complex for any order. It was, "Will you go and try?" and my answer was, "Only too delighted." As for all that may be said of our holding out, etc., etc., it is all twaddle, for we had no option; as for all that may be said as to why I did not escape with Stewart, it is simply because the people would not have been such fools as to have let me go, so there is an end of those great-coats of self-sacrifice, etc. I must add in re "the people not letting me go," that even if they had been willing for me to go, I would not have gone, and left them in their misery.
September 19.—Anyone reading the telegram 5th May, Suakin, 29th April, Massowah, and without date, Egerton saying, "Her Majesty's Government does not entertain your proposal to supply Turkish or other troops in order to undertake military operations in the Soudan, and consequently if you stay at Kartoum you should state your reasons," might imagine one was luxuriating up here, whereas, I am sure, no one wishes more to be out of this than myself; the reasons are those horribly plucky Arabs. I own to having been very insubordinate to Her Majesty's Government and its officials, but it is my nature, and I cannot help it.
September 24.—I altogether decline the imputation that the projected expedition has come to relieve me. It has come to save our national honour in extricating the garrisons, etc., from a position our action in Egypt has placed those garrisons. As to myself, I could make good my retreat at any moment if I wished.
September 29.—My idea is to induce Her Majesty's Government to undertake the extrication of all people or garrisons, now hemmed in or captive, and that if this is not their programme then to resign my commission and do what I can to attain it (the object).... I say this, because I should be sorry for Lord Wolseley to advance from Dongola without fully knowing my views. If Her Majesty's Government are going to abandon the garrisons, then do not advance. I say nothing of evacuating the country; I merely maintain that if we do so, everyone in the Soudan, captive or hemmed in, ought to have the option and power of retreat.
Source.—The Times, November 19.
The Representation of the People Bill was yesterday read a second time in the House of Lords without a division, and without discussion upon anything it contains.... The terms offered by the Government, and now definitely accepted by the Opposition, are, first, that the draft of the Redistribution Bill shall be submitted in private to the Conservative leaders, in order that, by suggesting the alterations they think necessary, they may convince themselves of the equity and fairness of the measure. In the second place, it is agreed that, when a Redistribution Bill satisfactory to both parties has been framed, the Opposition will give to the Government adequate assurance that the Franchise Bill shall pass the House of Lords.... Lastly, the Government pledge themselves to take up the Redistribution Bill as early as possible in the New Year, to push it through its remaining stages with all possible expedition, and, relying upon the loyal support of the Opposition being given to the joint scheme, to stake not only their credit but their existence upon the passing of the Bill into law in the Session of 1885.
Source.—The Times, December 13.
The question of providing penny dinners for the children of the London poor has received pretty ample discussion. Everybody can form an idea now of the difficulties which will have to be surmounted by the central committee of School Board managers and teachers.... The vital principle of the scheme is that the dinners shall be supplied on a self-supporting basis. In some places the work has been undertaken with more zeal than knowledge, and there has been quick disappointment. The Vicar of St. Mark's, Walworth, who seems to doubt whether the scheme can be carried out on purely commercial lines, tells us how fastidious are the children of the poor. They turn from macaroni; they dislike the flavour of cabbage boiled up in a stew; they will have nothing to say to haricot beans, lentils, or salads; they mistrust soup; and are generally most attracted by suet dumplings and jam or currant puddings.
Source.—Sir Reginald Wingate's Mahdiism and the Egyptian Soudan, pp. 166-172. (Macmillans.)
Soon all that had been in the commissariat was finished, and then the inhabitants and the soldiers had to eat dogs, donkeys, skins of animals, gum, and palm fibre, and famine prevailed. The soldiers stood on the fortifications like pieces of wood. The civilians were even worse off. Many died of hunger, and corpses filled the streets; no one had even energy to bury them.... We were heartbroken; the people and soldiers began to lose faith in Gordon's promises, and they were terribly weak from famine. At last Sunday morning broke, and Gordon Pasha, who used always to watch the enemy's movements from the top of the palace, noticed a considerable movement in the south, which looked as if the Arabs were collecting at Kalakala. He at once sent word to all of us who had attended the previous meeting, and to a few others, to come at once to the palace. We all came, but Gordon Pasha did not see us. We were again addressed by Giriagis Bey, who said he had been told by Gordon Pasha to inform us that he noticed much movement in the enemy's lines, and believed an attack would be made on the town; he therefore ordered us to collect every male in the town from the age of eight, even to the old men, and to line all the fortifications, and that if we had difficulty in getting this order obeyed we were to use force. Giriagis said that Gordon Pasha now appealed to us for the last time to make a determined stand, for in twenty-four hours' time he had no doubt the English would arrive; but that if we preferred to submit then, he gave the commandant liberty to open the gates, and let all join the rebels. He had nothing more to say. I then asked to be allowed to see the Pasha, and was admitted to his presence. I found him sitting on a divan, and as I came in he pulled off his tarboush (fez) and flung it from him, saying, "What more can I say? I have nothing more to say; the people will no longer believe me; I have told them over and over again that help would be here, but it has never come, and now they must see I tell them lies. If this, my last promise, fails, I can do nothing more. Go and collect all the people you can on the lines, and make a good stand. Now leave me to smoke these cigarettes." (There were two full boxes of cigarettes on the table.) I could see he was in despair, and he spoke in a tone I had never heard before. I knew then that he had been too agitated to address the meeting, and thought the sight of his despair would dishearten us. All the anxiety he had undergone had gradually turned his hair to a snowy white. I left him, and this was the last time I saw him alive.... It was a gloomy day, that last day in Khartoum; hundreds lay dead and dying in the streets from starvation, and there were none to bury them. At length the night came, and, as I afterwards learnt, Gordon Pasha sat up writing till midnight, and then lay down to sleep. He awoke some time between two and three a.m. The wild war-cries of the Arabs were heard close at hand. A large body of rebels had crept in the dark close up to the broken-down parapet and filled-up ditch, between the White Nile and the Messalamieh Gate. The soldiers never knew of the enemy's approach until about twenty minutes before they were actually attacked, when the tramp of feet was heard, and the alarm was sounded; but they were so tired out and exhausted that it was not until the sentries fired that the rest of the men suddenly started up surprised, to find swarms of Arabs pouring over the ditch and up the parapet, yelling and shouting their war-cries. Here they met with little resistance, for most of the soldiers were four or five paces apart, and were too feeble to oppose such a rush. The Arabs were soon within the lines, and thus able to attack the rest of the soldiers from behind. They were opposed at some points, but it was soon all over.... Meanwhile Gordon Pasha, on being roused by the noise, went on to the roof of the palace in his sleeping clothes. He soon made out that the rebels had entered the town, and for upwards of an hour he kept up a hot fire in the direction of the attack. I heard that he also sent word to get up steam in the steamer, but the engineer was not there; he had been too frightened to leave his house. As dawn approached Gordon Pasha could see the Arab banners in the town, and soon the gun became useless, for he could not depress it enough to fire on the enemy. By this time the Arabs had crowded round the palace in thousands, but for a time no one dared enter, for they thought mines were laid to blow them up. Meanwhile Gordon Pasha had left the roof; he went to his bedroom, which was close to the divan, and there he put on a white uniform, his sword, which he did not draw, and, carrying his revolver in his right hand, stepped out into the passage in front of the entrance to the office, and just at the head of the staircase. During this interval four men, more brave than the rest, forced their way into the palace, and once in were followed by hundreds of others. Of these latter, the majority rushed up the stairs to the roof, where, after a short resistance, the palace guard, servants, and cavasses were all killed; while the four men—Taha Shahin, a Dongolawi, whose father was formerly in my service; Ibrahim Abu Shanab, servant of George Angelleto; Hamad Wad Ahmed Jar en Nebbi, Hassani; and a fourth, also a Dongolawi, servant to Fathallah Jehami—followed by a crowd of others, knowing Gordon Pasha's room, rushed towards it. Taha Shahin was the first to encounter Gordon beside the door of the divan, apparently waiting for the Arabs, and standing with a calm and dignified manner, his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Shahin, dashing forward with the curse "Mala' oun el yom yomek!" (O cursed one, your time is come!), plunged his spear into his body. Gordon, it is said, made a gesture of scorn with his right hand, and turned his back, where he received another spear wound, which caused him to fall forward, and was most likely his mortal wound. The other three men, closely following Shahin, then rushed in, and, cutting at the prostrate body with their swords, must have killed him in a few seconds. His death occurred just before sunrise. He made no resistance, and did not fire a shot from his revolver. From all I knew, I am convinced that he never intended to surrender. I should say he must have intended to use his revolver only if he saw it was the intention of the Arabs to take him prisoner alive; but he saw such crowds rushing on him with swords and spears, and there being no important emirs with them, he must have known that they did not intend to spare him, and that was most likely what he wanted.... Gordon Pasha's head was immediately cut off and sent to the Mahdi at Omdurman, while his body was dragged downstairs and left exposed for a time in the garden, where many Arabs came to plunge their spears into it. I heard that the Mahdi had given orders for Gordon to be spared, but what I have stated was told me by the four men I have mentioned, and I believe the Mahdi pardoned them for their disobedience of orders.... I saw Gordon Pasha's head exposed in Omdurman. It was fixed between the branches of a tree, and all who passed by threw stones at it.
[Note.—This account is from the journal of Bordeini Bey, an eminent Khartoum merchant, who willingly gave up his large stores of grain to Gordon for the supply of the garrison. He was taken prisoner at the fall of the city.]
Source.—Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt, vol. i., p. 589. (Macmillans.)
It has been already shown that General Gordon paid little heed to his instructions, that he was consumed with a desire to "smash the Mahdi," and that the view that he was constrained to withdraw everyone who wished to leave from the most distant parts of the Soudan was, to say the least, quixotic. The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that it was a mistake to send General Gordon to the Soudan. But do they afford any justification for the delay in preparing and in despatching the relief expedition? I cannot think that they do so. Whatever errors of judgment General Gordon may have committed, the broad facts, as they existed in the early summer of 1884, were that he was sent to Khartoum by the British Government, who never denied their responsibility for his safety, that he was beleaguered, and that he was, therefore, unable to get away. It is just possible that he could have effected his retreat, if, having abandoned the southern posts, he had moved northward with the Khartoum garrison in April or early in May. As time went on, and nothing was heard of him, it became more and more clear that he either could not or would not—probably that he could not—move. The most indulgent critic would scarcely extend beyond June 27 the date at which the Government should have decided on the question of whether a relief expedition should or should not be despatched. On that day the news that Berber had been captured on May 26 by the Dervishes was finally confirmed. Yet it was not till six weeks later that the Government obtained from Parliament the funds necessary to prepare for an expedition.
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 294, col. 1311. (House of Lords debate on Egypt, February 26, 1885.)
The Marquis of Salisbury: ... The conduct of Her Majesty's Government has been an alternation of periods of slumber and periods of rush, and the rush, however vehement, has always been too unprepared and too unintelligent to repair the damage which the period of slumber has effected.... The case of the bombardment of Alexandria, the case of the abandonment of the Soudan, the case of the mission of General Graham's force—they are all on the same plan, and all show you that remarkable characteristic of torpor during the time when action was needed, and hasty, impulsive, ill-considered action when the time for action had passed by. Their further conduct was modelled on their action in the past. So far was it modelled that we were able to put it to the test which establishes a scientific law. I should like to quote what I said on the 4th of April, when discussing the prospect of the relief of General Gordon. What I said was this: "Are these circumstances encouraging to us when we are asked to trust that, on the inspiration of the moment, when the danger comes, Her Majesty's Government will find some means of relieving General Gordon? I fear that the history of the past will be repeated in the future; and just again, when it is too late, the critical resolution will be taken; some terrible news will come that the position of Gordon is absolutely a forlorn and hopeless one, and then, under the pressure of public wrath and Parliamentary censure, some desperate resolution of sending an expedition will be formed too late to achieve the object which it is desired to gain." I quote these words to show that by that time we had ascertained the laws of motion and the orbits of those erratic comets who sit on the Treasury Bench. Now the terrible responsibility and shame rests upon the Government, because they were warned in March and April of the danger to General Gordon, because they received every intimation which men could reasonably look for that his danger would be extreme, and because they delayed from March and April right down to the 15th of August before they took a single measure to relieve him. What were they doing all that time? It is very difficult to conceive. What happened during those eventful months? I suppose some day the memoirs will tell our grandchildren, but we shall never know. Some people think there were divisions in the Cabinet, and that after division on division a decision was put off, lest the Cabinet be broken up. I am rather inclined to think it was due to the peculiar position of the Prime Minister. He came in as the apostle of the Midlothian campaign, loaded with all the doctrines and all the follies of that pilgrimage. We have seen on each occasion, after one of these mishaps, when he has been forced by events and by the common sense of the nation to take some active steps—we have seen his extreme supporters falling foul of him, and reproaching him with having deserted their opinions and disappointed the ardent hopes which they had formed of him as the apostle of absolute negation in foreign affairs. I think he has always felt the danger of that reproach. He always felt the debt he had incurred to those supporters. He always felt a dread lest they should break away; and he put off again and again to the last practical moment any action which might bring him into open conflict with the doctrine by which his present eminence was gained. At all events, this is clear—that throughout those six months the Government knew perfectly well the danger in which General Gordon was placed. It has been said that General Gordon did not ask for troops. I am surprised at that defence. One of the characteristics of General Gordon was the extreme abnegation of his nature. It was not to be expected that he should send home a telegram to say, "I am in great danger, therefore send me troops"—he would probably have cut off his right hand before he would have sent a telegram of that sort. But he sent home telegrams through Mr. Power, telegrams saying that the people of Khartoum were in great danger; that the Mahdi would succeed unless military succour was sent forward; urging at one time the sending forward of Sir Evelyn Wood and his Egyptians, and at another the landing of Indians at Suakin and the establishment of the Berber route, and distinctly telling the Government—and this is the main point—that unless they would consent to his views the supremacy of the Mahdi was assured.... Well, now, my Lords, is it conceivable that after two months, in May, the Prime Minister should have said that they were waiting to have reasonable proof that Gordon was in danger? By that time Khartoum was surrounded, the Governor of Berber had announced that his case was hopeless, which was too surely proved by the massacre which took place in June; and yet in May Mr. Gladstone was still waiting for "reasonable proof" that the men who were surrounded, who had announced that they had only five months' food, were in danger.... It was the business of the Government not to interpret General Gordon's telegrams as if they had been statutory declarations, but to judge for themselves of the circumstances of the case, and to see that those who were surrounded, who were only three Englishmen among such a vast body of Mohammedans, and who were already cut off from all communications with the civilized world by the occupation of every important town upon the river, were really in danger, and that if they meant to answer their responsibilities they were bound to relieve them. I cannot tell what blindness fell over the eyes of some members of Her Majesty's Government....
Source.—The Times, January 26.
The "dynamite war," as it is called by the disloyal Irish and the Irish-American outrage-mongers, was continued in London on Saturday with some success to the perpetrators. Accepting the privilege accorded to all comers to view the Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London, they cunningly placed charged machines of dynamite in the Crypt leading out of Westminster Hall, in the House of Commons chamber itself, and caused, almost at the same time, an explosion in the Tower of London. The first explosion at Westminster was in the Hall itself. Some visitors were passing through the Crypt, when one noticed a parcel on the ground. It is described as the usual "black bag." ... The nearest police-constable, Cole by name, picked up the smoking parcel, and brought it to the entrance of the Crypt, where, from its heat or some other cause, he dropped it. It was fortunate for him that he did so, for in an instant a terrific explosion burst from the parcel.... The stone flooring was shattered, and the rails round the Crypt were somewhat twisted by the immediate blow of the explosion. Its secondary effect was to break some of the windows, and shake down from the vast beams of Irish oak, forming the roof, the accumulated dust of ages.... The chamber of the House of Commons presented the scene of a complete wreck from the second explosion. The benches of the Government side were torn up, and some of the seats had been hurled up into the gallery above.... The explosion at the Tower of London was the most serious in its effects of the three, for several persons were injured, some damage was done to the building, and a fire ensued, lasting an hour.... The explosive was placed between the stands of arms in the ancient banqueting-room of the Tower.
Source.—The Times, January 31.
Industrial Remuneration Conference.
Yesterday the delegates held their concluding sitting at Prince's Hall, Piccadilly, when the subject set down for discussion was: Would the more general distribution of capital or land, or the State management of capital or land, promote or impair the production of wealth and the welfare of the community?...
The discussion on the papers was begun by Mr. Williams (Social Democratic Federation), who said that if they left all the machinery, all the railways, and all the mines in the hands of the rich capitalists, the working classes would still continue to be oppressed. They must either say that the Government had no right to interfere with anything, or they must admit that the State must equally interfere between the landlord, the capitalist, and the labourer. He compared the part played by politicians like Mr. Chamberlain, who directed their attacks exclusively against the landlords, and spared the rich capitalists, to that sustained by the Artful Dodger in "Oliver Twist."
Mr. B. Shaw (Fabian Society) said he had no desire to give pain to the burglar—if any of that trade were in the room—or to the landlord or the capitalist, pure and simple; all he could say was that all three belonged to the same class, and that the injury each inflicted on the community was precisely of the same nature.
[Note.—The Social Democratic Federation had been founded in 1881; the Fabian Society, a few weeks before this conference met.]
Source.—The Times, February 17.
Yesterday afternoon three or four thousand of the unemployed of London held a demonstration on the Embankment near Cleopatra's Needle, and afterwards marched to Westminster, carrying banners. From Whitehall a large number of the crowd passed into Downing Street near the Premier's residence, where a Cabinet meeting was being held at the time, but at the request of the police, of whom an extra force were in attendance, the crowd moved round to King Street, where they were addressed in somewhat inflammatory terms by some of their speakers, who wore red badges. One speaker clung to the top of a lamp-post, and thence harangued the crowd; another spoke from a window-sill. Meantime, in the absence of Sir Charles Dilke, who was at the Cabinet Meeting, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, Parliamentary Secretary of the Local Government Board, received a small deputation of the leaders.... At the close of the interview the crowd marched back to the Embankment, where the following resolution was passed unanimously: "That this meeting of the Unemployed, having heard the answer given by the Local Government Board to their deputation, considers the refusal to start public works to be a sentence of death on thousands of those out of work, and the recommendation to bring pressure to bear on the local bodies to be a direct incitement to violence; further, it will hold Mr. G. W. E. Russell and the members of the Government, individually and collectively, guilty of the murder of those who may die in the next few weeks, and whose lives would have been saved had the suggestions of the deputation been acted on."
(Signed) John Burns, Engineer.
John E. Williams, Labourer.
William Henry, Foreman.
James Macdonald, Tailor.
Source.—The Manchester Guardian, May 14.
We understand that it is in contemplation to raise a number of workmen to the magisterial bench in the Duchy of Lancaster. The first of the appointments is that of Mr. H. R. Slatter to the Commission of the peace for the City of Manchester. He is Secretary to the Provincial Typographical Association, and a member of the Manchester School Board. It is understood that similar offers of appointment to the magistracy have been made to Mr. T. Birtwistle, of Accrington, Secretary to the Operative Weavers' Association of North and North-east Lancashire, and Mr. Fielding, of Bolton, who holds the post of Secretary to the local branch of the Operative Cotton Spinners' Association.
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 298, col. 1658. (House of Lords, July 6, 1885.)
The Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland (The Earl of Carnarvon): My Lords, my noble friend [Lord Salisbury] has desired that I should state to your Lordships the general position that Her Majesty's Government are prepared to occupy with regard to Irish affairs, and I hope to do so in comparatively few sentences. I need not tell your Lordships what everyone in this House knows, the nature of the events which have brought us to the present position. It will be perhaps sufficient if, by quoting a few figures, I show what the state of agrarian crime was a few years ago, what it has since been in the interval, and what it is at the present time. In 1878 agrarian crime in Ireland stood at 301 cases. In the following year there were 860, and in the three following years—1880, 1881, and 1882—the cases reached the enormous totals of 2,580, 4,439, and 3,433 respectively. In 1883, after the Crimes Act had passed, agrarian crimes fell to 870, and last year to 762. I ought perhaps to supplement that statement by saying that in 1884 I think that there was no case of the worst form of agrarian crime. I think that there was not one case of actual murder, and the calendars promise to be of a comparatively, if not singularly, light character. The substance therefore of the statement is that, whereas crime rose in those three years to an enormous figure, it has since fallen to what I do not call an absolutely normal level, but to the same level—in fact, below the level of 1879. In these circumstances the question has naturally arisen—what Her Majesty's Government are to do; and it is impossible to conceive a graver or more serious matter on which to deliberate. Within a very short time—indeed, within a time to be numbered by weeks—the Crimes Act expires, and the question is, What course should be taken? Three courses are possible. Either you may re-enact the Crimes Act in the whole, or you may re-enact it in part, or you may allow it to lapse altogether. I think very few persons would be disposed to advocate its re-enactment as a whole. The more serious and practical question is whether it shall be re-enacted in part. The Act having produced, as all agree, its effect, and three years having lapsed, it seems hard to call on Parliament once more to re-enact it. I believe for my part that special legislation of this sort is inexpedient. It is inexpedient while it is in operation, because it must conjure up a sense of restlessness and irritation; and it is still more inexpedient when it has to be renewed at short intervals, and brings before the mind of the people of the country that they are to be kept under peculiar and exceptional coercion. Now I have looked through a good many of the Acts that have been passed, I may say, during the last generation for Ireland, and I have been astonished to find that ever since the year 1847, with some very short intervals which are hardly worth mentioning, Ireland has lived under exceptional and coercive legislation. No sane man can admit that this is a satisfactory or wholesome state of things. It does seem to me that it is very desirable, if possible, to extricate ourselves from this miserable habit, and to aim at some wholesome and better solution. But, more than being undesirable, I hold that such legislation is practically impossible, if it is to be continually and indefinitely re-enacted. I think it was Count Cavour who said that it is easy to govern in a state of siege. It may be easy to govern in a state of siege for a time, but to attempt to govern permanently is, I believe, utterly impossible. It may be said that this is a question of trust. No doubt it is a question of trust; but trust begets trust, and it is after all the only foundation upon which we can hope to build up amity and concord between the two nations. I know of nothing more sad than to see how, instead of diminishing under the healing process of time, there has been a growth of ill-will between these two nations; and I think it is time to try how far we may appeal to better feelings. I for my part believe that Ireland will justify the confidence which is shown her when this Act is allowed to lapse. If I am asked further as to policy, I will speak generally in these terms. So far as the mere administration of the law is concerned, it is our hope and intention to administer the ordinary law firmly and effectually. So far as the larger field of Government, which includes law, and more than law, is concerned, I hope we shall deal justly, and that we shall secure perhaps a somewhat better, wholesomer, and kindlier relation, I will not say merely between classes, creeds, or races, but between the rulers and the ruled. I cannot and will not lightly believe that the combination of good feeling to England and good government to Ireland is a hopeless task. My Lords, I do not believe that with honesty and single-mindedness of purpose on the one side, and with the willingness of the Irish people on the other, it is hopeless to look for some satisfactory solution of this terrible question. My Lords, these I believe to be the views and opinions of my colleagues. And just as I have seen in English colonies across the sea a combination of English, Irish, and Scotch settlers bound together in loyal obedience to the law and the Crown, and contributing to the general prosperity of the country, so I cannot conceive that there is any irreconcilable bar here in their native home and in England to the unity and amity of the two nations.
Source.—The Times, October 1.
The interest excited by the recent trials of the Nordenfeldt submarine boat is sufficiently shown by the presence at Landskrona of thirty-nine officers, representing every European Power, together with Brazil and Japan. The Nordenfeldt boat, the first of its class, was built at Stockholm about two years ago. The boat is cigar-shaped, with a coffin-like projection on the top amidships, formed by vertical combings supporting a glass dome or conning tower, 1 foot high, which enables the commander to see his way. The dome, with its iron protecting cover, stands on a horizontal lid, which can be swung to one side to allow the crew of three men to get in or out without difficulty. The length of the hull is 64 feet, and the central diameter 9 feet. It is built of Swedish mild steel plates ? inch thick at the centre, tapered to ? inch at the ends.... In order to prepare for action, enough sea-water is taken in to reduce the buoyancy to 1 cwt., which suffices to keep the conning tower well above the surface. In order to sink the boat further, the vertical propellers are set in motion, and by their action it is held at the required depth. Thus to come to the surface again it is merely necessary to stop the vertical propellers, in which case the reserve of buoyancy at once comes into play.... The motive power is steam alone. For submarine work, as stoking is, of course, impossible, the firebox has to be sealed. It is therefore necessary to store the requisite power beforehand, and this is done by heating the water in two tanks placed fore and aft, till a pressure of about 150 pounds per square inch is obtained. With about this initial pressure the boat has been driven for sixteen miles at a speed of three knots.... No compressed air is carried, and the crew depend therefore for existence on the amount of air sealed up in the hull. With this amount of air only, four men have remained for a period of six hours without any special inconvenience.
Source.—Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol. iii., pp. 173, 174, 220-226. (Macmillans.)
Mr. Chamberlain had been rapidly advancing in public prominence, and he now showed that the agitation against the House of Lords was to be only the beginning and not the end. At Ipswich (January 14) he said this country had been called the paradise of the rich, and warned his audience no longer to allow it to remain the purgatory of the poor. He told them that reform of local government must be almost the first reform of the next Parliament, and spoke in favour of allotments, the creation of small proprietors, the placing of a small tax on the total property of the taxpayer, and of free education. Mr. Gladstone's attention was drawn from Windsor to these utterances, and he replied that though he thought some of them were "on various grounds open to grave objection," yet they seemed to raise no "definite point on which, in his capacity of Prime Minister, he was entitled to interfere and lecture the speaker." A few days later, more terrible things were said by Mr. Chamberlain at Birmingham. He pronounced for the abolition of plural voting, and in favour of payment of members, and manhood suffrage. He also advocated a bill for enabling local communities to acquire land, a graduated income-tax, and the breaking up of the great estates as the first step in land reform....
Mr. Gladstone made a lenient communication to the orator, to the effect that "there had better be some explanations among them when they met." ... He recognized by now that in the Cabinet the battle was being fought between old time and new. He did not allow his dislike of some of the new methods of forming public opinion to prevent him from doing full justice to the energetic and sincere public spirit behind them....
The address to his electors ... was given to the public on September 17. It was, as he said, as long as a pamphlet.... The Whigs, we are told, found it vague, the Radicals cautious, the Tories crafty; but everybody admitted that it tended to heal feuds.... Mr. Chamberlain, though raising his own flag, was respectful to his leader's manifesto. The surface was thus stilled for the moment; yet the waters ran very deep....
[Gladstone] goes on to say that the ground had now been sufficiently laid for going to the election with a united front, that ground being the common profession of a limited creed or programme in the Liberal sense, with an entire freedom for those so inclined to travel beyond it, but not to impose their own sense upon all other people.... If the party and its leaders were agreed as to immediate measures ... were not these enough to find a Liberal administration plenty of work ... for several years?...
An advance was made in the development of a peculiar situation by important conversations with Mr. Chamberlain [at Hawarden: these] did not materially alter Mr. Gladstone's disposition [but the first crisis which promptly developed tended to obscure the direct issue].
Source.—Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol. iii., pp. 188-245. (Macmillans.)
On May 15 Mr. Gladstone announced ... that they proposed to continue what he described as certain clauses of a valuable and equitable description in the existing Coercion Act.
No Parliamentary situation could be more tempting to an astute Opposition. The signs that the Cabinet was not united were unmistakable.... The key to an operation that should at once, with the aid of the disaffected Liberals and the Irish, turn out Mr. Gladstone and secure the English elections, was an understanding with Mr. Parnell.... Lord Salisbury and his confidential friends had resolved [previous to the defeat of the Government], subject to official information, to drop coercion, and the only visible reason why they should form the resolution at that particular moment was its probable effect upon Mr. Parnell. [Meanwhile] the policy of the Central Board [for Ireland], of which Mr. Gladstone so decisively approved, had been killed.... When it came to the full Cabinet it could not be carried. [June 6. Government defeated on an amendment to the Budget by 264 to 252.] The defeat of the Gladstone Government was the first success of a combination between Tories and Irish that proved of cardinal importance to policies and parties for several critical months to come.... The new Government were not content with renouncing coercion for the present. They cast off all responsibility for its practice in the past.... In July a singular incident occurred, nothing less strange than an interview between the new Lord-Lieutenant [Lord Carnarvon] and the leader of the Irish party. To realize its full significance we have to recall the profound odium that at this time enveloped Mr. Parnell's name in the minds of nearly all Englishmen.... The transaction had consequences, and the Carnarvon episode was a pivot. The effect on the mind of Mr. Parnell was easy to foresee.... Why should he not believe that the alliance formed in June ... had really blossomed from a mere lobby manoeuvre and election expedient into a policy adopted by serious statesmen?
[In Midlothian, on November 9, Mr. Gladstone said:] "It will be a vital danger to the country and to the empire, if at a time when a demand from Ireland for larger powers of self-government is to be dealt with, there is not in Parliament a party totally independent of the Irish vote." ... Mr. Gladstone's cardinal deliverance in November had been preceded by an important event. On October 7, 1885, Lord Salisbury made that speech at Newport which is one of the tallest and most striking landmarks in the shifting sands of this controversy.... Some of the more astute of the Minister's own colleagues were delighted with his speech, as keeping the Irishmen steady to the Tory party.... The question on which side the Irish vote in Great Britain should be thrown seems not to have been decided until after Mr. Gladstone's speech. It was then speedily settled. On November 21 a manifesto was issued, handing over the Irish vote in Great Britain solid to the orator of the Newport speech. The tactics were obvious. It was Mr. Parnell's interest to bring the two contending British parties as near as might be to a level, and this he could only hope to do by throwing his strength upon the weaker side. It was from the weaker side, if they could be maintained in office, that he would get the best terms.... Some estimated the loss to the Liberal party in this island at twenty seats, others at forty. Whether twenty or forty, these lost seats made a fatal difference in the division on the Irish Bill a few months later.... But this was not all, and was not the worst of it.... Passions were roused, and things were said about Irishmen that could not at once be forgotten; and the great task of conversion in 1886, difficult in any case, was made a thousand times more difficult still by the antipathies of the electoral battle of 1885. Meanwhile it was for the moment, and for the purposes of the moment, a striking success.
Source.—The Times, December 11.
From a carefully prepared statistical abstract of the election it appears that in the English counties, out of a total electorate of 2,303,133 voters, 1,937,988 votes were recorded, in the proportion of 1,020,774 Liberal votes to 916,314 Conservative.
Source.—Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol. iii., pp. 292-295. (Macmillans.)
What Mr. Gladstone called the basis of his new government was set out in a short memorandum, which he read to each of those whom he hoped to include in his Cabinet: "I propose to examine whether it is or is not practicable to comply with the desire widely prevalent in Ireland, and testified by the return of eighty-five out of one hundred and three representatives, for the establishment by statute of a legislative body to sit in Dublin, and to deal with Irish as distinguished from Imperial affairs, in such a manner as would be just to each of the three kingdoms, equitable with reference to every class of the people of Ireland, conducive to the social order and harmony of that country, and calculated to support and consolidate the unity of the Empire on the continued basis of Imperial authority and mutual attachment." No definite plan was propounded or foreshadowed, but only the proposition that it was a duty to seek a plan. The cynical version was that a Cabinet was got together on the chance of being able to agree. To Lord Hartington Mr. Gladstone applied as soon as he received the Queen's commission. The invitation was declined on reasoned grounds (January 30th). Examination and inquiry, said Lord Hartington, must mean a proposal. If no proposal followed inquiry, the reaction of Irish disappointment would be severe, as it would be natural. He could not depart from the traditions of British statesmen, and he was opposed to a separate Irish legislature. At the same time, he concluded, in a sentence afterwards pressed by Mr. Gladstone on the notice of the Queen: "I am fully convinced that the alternative policy of governing Ireland without large concessions to the national sentiment, presents difficulties of a tremendous character, which in my opinion could now only be faced by the support of a nation united by the consciousness that the fullest opportunity had been given for the production and consideration of a conciliatory policy...." The decision was persistently regarded by Mr. Gladstone as an important event in English political history. With a small number of distinguished individual exceptions, it marked the withdrawal from the Liberal party of the aristocratic element....
Mr. Goschen, who had been a valuable member of the great Ministry of 1868, was invited to call, but without hopes that he would rally to a cause so startling; the interview, while courteous and pleasant, was over in a very few minutes. Lord Derby, a man of still more cautious type, and a rather recent addition to the officers of the Liberal staff, declined, not without good nature. Most lamented of all the abstentions was the honoured and trusted name of Mr. Bright.
Source.—Winston Churchill's Life of Lord Randolph Churchill, vol. ii., pp. 60-65. (Macmillans.)
Lord Randolph crossed the Channel and arrived at Larne early on the morning of February 22. He was welcomed like a king.... That night the Ulster Hall (in Belfast) was crowded to its utmost compass. In order to satisfy the demand for tickets all the seats were removed, and the concourse—which he addressed for nearly an hour and a half—heard him standing. He was nearly always successful on the platform, but the effect he produced upon his audience at Belfast was one of the most memorable triumphs of his life.... "Now may be the time," he said, "to show whether all these ceremonies and forms which are practised in Orange lodges are really living symbols or only idle and meaningless ceremonies; whether that which you have so carefully fostered is really the lamp of liberty, and its flame the undying and unquenchable fire of freedom.... Like Macbeth before the murder of Duncan, Mr. Gladstone asks for time. Before he plunges the knife into the heart of the British Empire, he reflects, he hesitates.... The Loyalists in Ulster should wait and watch—organize and prepare. Diligence and vigilance ought to be your watchword; so that the blow, if it does come, may not come upon you as a thief in the night, and may not find you unready, and taken by surprise. I believe that this storm will blow over, and that the vessel of the Union will emerge with her Loyalist crew stronger than before; but it is right and useful that I should add that if the struggle should continue, and if my conclusions should turn out to be wrong, then I am of opinion that the struggle is not likely to remain within the lines of what we are accustomed to look upon as constitutional action. No portentous change such as the Repeal of the Union, no change so gigantic, could be accomplished by the mere passing of a law. The history of the United States will teach us a different lesson; and if it should turn out that the Parliament of the United Kingdom was so recreant from all its high duties, and that the British nation was so apostate to traditions of honour and courage, as to hand over the Loyalists of Ireland to the domination of an Assembly in Dublin, which must be to them a foreign and an alien assembly, if it should be within the design of Providence to place upon you and your fellow-Loyalists so heavy a trial, then, gentlemen, I do not hesitate to tell you most truly that in that dark hour there will not be wanting to you those of position and influence in England who would be willing to cast in their lot with you, and who, whatever the result, will share your fortunes and your fate. There will not be wanting those who, at the exact moment, when the time is fully come—if that time should come—will address you in words which are perhaps best expressed by one of our greatest English poets:
'The combat deepens; on, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave.
Wave, Ulster—all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry.'"
