 CHAPTER 40 THE TORRY DIOGENIES ROLLING HIS TUB PART I There was once, we read, a mighty preparation for war going on in Athens. Everybody was busy in arrangement of some kind to meet the needs of coming battle. He's had nothing in particular to do, but was unwilling to appear absolutely idle when all else were so busy. He set to work, therefore, with immense clatter and energy, to roll his tub up and down the streets of Athens. The conservative government, seeing Europe, all in disturbance and having nothing very particular to do, began to roll a tub of their own, and to show a preternatural and wholly unnecessary activity in doing so. The year 1859 was one of storm and stress on the European continent. The war drum throbbed through the whole of it. The year began with the memorable declaration of the Emperor of the French to the Austrian ambassador at the Tuileries that the relations between the two empires was not such as he could desire. As he said, according to the description given of the event in a dispatch from Lord Cowley with some severity of tone, in truth Count Kavur had had his way. He had prevailed upon Louis Napoleon, and the result was a determination to expel the Austrians from Italy. It seems clear enough that the Emperor, after a while, grew anxiously inclined to draw back from the position in which he had placed himself. Great pressure was brought to bear upon him by the English government, and by other governments as well to induce him to refrain from disturbing the peace of Europe. He was probably quite sincere in the assurances he repeatedly gave, that he was doing his best to prevent a rupture with Austria, and he would possibly have given much to avoid the quarrel. The turn of his mind was such that he scarcely ever formed any resolution or entered into any agreement, but the moment the step was taken he began to see reasons for wishing that he had followed a different course. In this instance it is evident that he started at the sound he himself had made. It was not, however, any longer in his power to guide events. He was in the hands of a stronger will and a more daring spirit than his own. In the career of Count Kavur our times have seen perhaps the most remarkable illustration of that great Italian statesmanship which has always appeared at intervals in the history of Europe. There may be very different opinions about the political morality of Kavur, rather indeed may it be said that his strongest admirer is forced to invent a morality of his own in order to justify all the political actions of a man who knew no fear, hesitation, or scruple. Kavur had the head of a Machiavelli, the daring of a Cesare Borgia, the political craft, and audacity of a Richelieu. He was undoubtedly a patriot and a lover of his country, but he was willing to serve his country by means from which the conscience of modern Europe, even as it chose itself in the business of statesmanship, is forced to shrink back. If ends were to justify means, then the history of united Italy may be the justification of the life of Kavur. But until ends are held to justify means, one can only say that he did marvelous things, that he broke up and reconstructed political systems, that he made a nation, that he realized the dreams of Dante and some of the schemes of Alexander VI, and that he accomplished all this for the most part at the cost of other people, and not of Italians. Louis Napoleon was simply a weapon in the hands of such a man. Kavur knew precisely what he wanted and was prepared to go all lengths and to run all risks to have it. And once the French Emperor had entered into a compact with him, there was no escape from it. Kavur did not look like an Italian, at least a typical Italian. He looked more like an Englishman. He reminded Englishmen oddly of Dickens' Pickwick, with his large forehead, his general look of moony good nature and his spectacles. That commonplace, homely exterior concealed unsurpassed force of character, subtlety of scheming, and power of will. Kavur was determined that France should fight Austria. If Louis Napoleon had shown any decided inclination to draw back, Kavur would have flung Piedmont single-handed into the fight and defied France after what had passed to leave her to her fate. Louis Napoleon dared not leave Piedmont to her fate. He had gone too far with Kavur for that. The war between France and Austria broke out. It was over, one might say, in a moment. Austria had no generals. The French army rushed to success, and then Louis Napoleon stopped short as suddenly as he had begun. He had proclaimed that he went to war to set Italy free from the Alps to the sea, but he made peace on the basis of the liberation of Lombardy from Austrian rule, and he left Venetia for another day and for other arms. He drew back before the very serious danger that threatened on the part of the German states, who showed ominous indications of a resolve to make the cause of Austria their own if France went too far. He held his hand from Venetia because of Prussia. Seven years later Prussia herself gave Venetia to Italy. The English government had made futile attempts to prevent the outbreak of war. Lord Momsbury had elaborated choirs of heavy commonplace in the vain hope that the great conflicting forces then let loose could be brought back into quietude by the gentle charm of plenteous platitude. Meanwhile, the conservative government could not exactly live on the mere reputation of having given good advice abroad to which no one would listen. They had to do something more at home. They began to roll a tub. While Europe was aflame with war, passion, and panic, the conservatives determined to try their hand at a reform bill. Mr. Disraeli, as leader of the House of Commons, knew that a reform bill was one of the certainties of the future. It suited him well enough to praise the perfection of existing institutions in his parliamentary and platform speeches, but no one knew better than he that the reform bill of 1832 had left some blanks that must be, one day or another filled by some government. Lord John Russell had made an attempt more than once and failed. He had tried a reform bill in 1852 and lost his chance because of the defeat of the Ministry on the Militia Bill. He had tried another experiment in 1854, but the country was too eager about war with Russia to care for domestic reform, and Lord John Russell had to abandon the attempt, not without an emotion which he could not succeed in concealing. Mr. Disraeli knew well enough that whenever Lord John Russell happened to be in power again he would return to his first love in politics, a reform bill. He knew also that a refusal to have anything to do with reform would always expose the Tories in office to a coalition of all the liberal fractions against them. At present he could not pretend to think that his party was strong. The conservatives were in office but they were not in power. At any moment if the liberals chose a motion calling for reform or censoring the government because they were doing nothing for reform might be brought forward in the House of Commons and carried in the teeth of the Tory party. Mr. Disraeli had to choose between two dangers. He might risk all by refusing reform. He might risk all by attempting reform. He thought on the whole the wiser course would be to endeavor to take possession of the reform question for himself and his party. The reappearance of Mr. Bright in politics stimulated no doubt this resolve on the part of the conservative leader. We speak only of the one leader, for it is not likely that the Prime Minister Lord Darby took any active interest in the matter. Lord Darby had outlived political ambition or he had had perhaps all the political success he cared for. There was not much to tempt him into a new reform campaign. Times had changed since his fiery energy went so far to stimulate the wigs of that day into enthusiasm for the Bill of Lord Grey. Lord Darby had had nearly all in life that such a man could desire. He had station of the highest. He had wealth and influence. He had fame as a great parliamentary debater. Now that Broom had ceased to take any leading part in debate, he had no rival in the House of Lords. He had an easy, buoyant temperament. He was, as we have said already, something of a scholar, and he loved the society of his Homer and his Horus, while he could enjoy outdoor amusements as well as any squire western or Sir Hilda Brandos Baldeston of them all. He was a sincere man without any pretense, and if he did not himself care about reform he was not likely to put on any appearance of enthusiasm about it. Nor did he set much store on continuing in office. He would be the same Lord Darby out of office as in. It is probable, therefore, that he would have allowed reform to go its way for him and never troubled, and if loss of office came of his indifference he would have gone out of office with unabated cheerfulness. But this way of looking at things was by no means suitable to his energetic and ambitious lieutenant. Mr. Disraeli had not nearly attained the height of his ambition, nor had he by any means exhausted his political energies. Mr. Disraeli, therefore, was not a man to view with any satisfaction the consequences likely to come to the conservative party from an open refusal to take up the cause of reform. He had always, too, measured fairly and accurately the popular influence and the parliamentary strength of Mr. Bright. It is clear that at a time when most of the conservatives, and not a few of the Whigs, regarded Mr. Bright as only an eloquent and respectable demagogue, Mr. Disraeli had made up his mind that the Manchester orator was a man of genius and foresight who must be taken account of as a genuine political power. Mr. Bright now returned to public life. He had for a long time been withdrawn by ill health from all share in political agitation or politics of any kind. At one time it was indeed fully believed that the House of Commons had seen the last of him. To many his return to Parliament and the Platform seemed almost like a resurrection. Almost immediately on his returning to public life he flung himself into a new agitation for reform. He addressed great meetings in the north of England and in Scotland, and he was induced to draw up a reform bill of his own. His scheme was talked of at that time by some of his opponents as though it were a project of which Jack Cade might have approved. It was practically a proposal to establish a franchise precisely like that which we have now, valid and all, only that it threw the expenses of the returning officer on the county or borough rate and it introduced a somewhat large measure of redistribution of seats. The opponents of reform were heard everywhere assuring themselves and their friends that the country in general cared nothing about reform. Mr. Bright himself was accredited with having said that his own effort to arouse a reforming spirit, even in the north, was like flogging a dead horse. But Mr. Disraeli was far too shrewd to be satisfied with such consolations as his followers would thus have administered. He knew well enough that the upper and middle classes cared very little about a new reform bill. They had had all the reform they wanted in 1832. But so long as the bill of 1832 remained unsupplemented, it was evident that any political party could appeal to the support of the working classes throughout the country in favor of any movement which promised to accomplish that object. In short, Mr. Disraeli knew that reform had to come some time and he was resolved to make his own game if he could. End of Section 20 Section 21 of a history of our own times, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 40 The Tory Diogenes Rolling His Tub Part 2 This time, however, he was not successful. The difficulties in his way were too great. It would have been impossible for him to introduce such a reform bill as Mr. Bright would be likely to accept. His own party would not endure such a proposition. He could only go so far as to bring in some bill which might possibly seem to reformers to be doing something for reform, and at the same time might be commended to conservatives on the ground that it really did nothing for it. Mr. Disraeli's reform bill was a curiosity. It offered a variety of little innovations which nobody wanted or could have cared about, and it left out of sight altogether the one reform which alone gave an excuse for any legislation. We have explained more than once that Lord Gray's reform bill admitted the middle class to legislation but left the working class out. What was now wanted was a measure to let the working class in. He seriously pretended that any other object than this was sought by those who called out for reform. Yet Mr. Disraeli's scheme made no more account of the working class as a whole than if they already possessed the vote every man of them. It proposed to give a vote in boroughs to persons who had property to the amount of ten pounds a year in the funds, bank stock, or East India stock, to persons who had sixty pounds in a savings bank, to persons receiving pensions in the naval military or civil service amounting to twenty pounds a year, to professional men, to graduates of universities, ministers of religion and certain school masters, in fact, to a great number of persons who either already had the franchise or could have it if they had any interest that way. The only proposition in the bill not absolutely farcical and absurd was that which would have equalized the franchise in counties and in boroughs making ten pounds the limit in each alike. The English working classes cried out for the franchise and Mr. Disraeli proposed to answer the cry by giving the vote to graduates of universities, medical practitioners, and school masters. Yet we may judge of the difficulties Mr. Disraeli had to deal with by the reception which even this poor little measure met with from some of his own colleagues. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley resigned office rather than have anything to do with it. Mr. Henley was a specimen of the class who might have been described as fine old English gentleman. He was shrewd, blunt, honest, and narrow, given to broad jokes and to arguments flavored with a sort of humor which reminded not very faintly of the drollery of Fielding's time. Mr. Walpole was a man of gentle bearing, not by any means a robust politician, nor liberally endowed with intellectual eloquence, but pure-minded and upright enough to satisfy the most exacting. Mr. Walpole wrote to Lord Darby a letter which had a certain simple dignity and pathos in it to explain the reason for his resignation. He frankly said that the measure which the Cabinet were prepared to recommend was one which they should all of them have stoutly opposed if either Lord Palmerston or Lord John Russell had ventured to bring it forward. This seemed to Mr. Walpole reason enough for his declining to have anything to do with it. It did not appear to him honourable to support a measure because it had been taken up by one's own party which the party would assuredly have denounced and opposed to the uttermost if it had been brought forward by the other side. Mr. Walpole's colleagues no doubt respected his scruples, but some probably regarded them with good-natured contempt. Such a man, it was clear, was not destined to make much of a way in politics. Public opinion admired Mr. Walpole and applauded his decision. Public opinion would have pronounced even more strongly in his favour had it known that at the time of his making his decision and withdrawing from a high official position Mr. Walpole was in circumstances which made the possession of a salary of the utmost importance to him. Had he even swallowed his scruples and held on a little longer he would have become entitled to a pension. He did not appear to have hesitated a moment. He was a high-minded gentleman. He could very well bear to be poor. He could not bear to surrender his self-respect. This resignation, however, so honourable to Mr. Walpole and to Mr. Henley, will serve to show how great were the difficulties which then stood in Mr. Disraeli's way. Probably Mr. Disraeli's own feelings were in favour of a liberally extended suffrage. It is not a very rash assumption to conjecture that he looked with contempt on the kind of reasoning which fancied that the safety of a state depends upon the narrowness of its franchise. But is Bill bore the character of a measure brought in with the object of trying to reconcile irreconcilable claims and principles? To be the author of something which should give the government the credit with their opponents of being reformers at heart and with their friends of being non-reformers at heart was apparently the object of Mr. Disraeli. The attempt was a complete failure. It was vain to preach up the beauty of lateral extension of the franchise as opposed to extension downwards. The country saw through the whole imposture at a glance. One of Mr. Disraeli's defects as a statesman has always been that he is apt to be just a little too clever for the business he has in hand. This ingenious reform, though, was a little too clever. More matter and less art would have served its turn. It was found out in a moment. Someone described its enfranchising clauses as fancy franchises. Mr. Bright introduced the phrase to the House of Commons and the clauses never recovered the epithet. The Savings Bank clause provoked immense ridicule. Suppose it was asked, a man draws out a few pounds to get married or to save his aged parent from starvation or to help a friend out of difficulties. Is it fair that he should be immediately disfranchised as a penalty for being loving and kindly? One does not want to make the electoral franchise a sort of monthion prize for the most meritorious of any class, but still is it reasonable that a man who is to have a vote, as long as he hoards his little sum of money, is to forfeit the vote the moment he does a kind or even a prudent thing? Even as a matter of mere prudence, it was very sensibly argued. Is it not better that a man should do something else with his money that invested in a Savings Bank, which is after all only a safer version of the traditional old stocking? It would be useless to go into any of the discussions which took place on this extraordinary bill. It can hardly be said to have been considered seriously. It had to be got rid of somehow, and therefore Lord John Russell moved an amendment declaring that no readjustment of the franchise would satisfy the House of Commons or the country, which did not provide for a greater extension of the suffrage in the cities and boroughs than was contemplated in the government measure. Perhaps the most remarkable speech made during the debate was that of Mr. Gladstone, who, accepting neither the bill nor the resolution, occupied himself chiefly with an appeal to Parliament and public opinion on behalf of small boroughs. The argument was ingenious. It pointed to the number of eminent men who had been enabled to begin public life very early by means of a nomination for some pocket borough, or who having quarreled with the constituents of a city or county might for a while have been exiled from Parliament, if some pocket borough, or rather pocket borough's master, had not admitted them by that little posture and gait. The argument, however, went no further than to show that in a civilized country every anomaly, however absurd, may be turned to some good account. If instead of creating small pocket boroughs the English constitutional system had conferred on a few great peers the privilege of nominating members of Parliament directly by their own authority, this arrangement would undoubtedly work well in some cases. Beyond all question, some of these privileged peers would send into Parliament deserving men who otherwise might be temporarily excluded from it. The same thing would sometimes happen no doubt if they made over the nomination to their wives or their wives' waiting women. But the system of pocket boroughs taken as a whole was stuffed with injustice and corruption. It worked direct evil in twenty cases for every one case in which it brought about indirect good. The purchase of seats in the Parliament of Paris undoubtedly did good in some cases. Some of the men for whom seats were bought proved themselves useful and impartial members of that curious tribunal. Lord John Russell's resolution was carried by a majority of three hundred and thirty against two hundred and ninety-one or a majority of thirty-nine. The government dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country. The elections did not excite very much public interest. They took place during the most critical moments of the war between France and Austria. While such news was arriving as that of the defeat of Magenta and the defeat of Solferino, the entrance of the Emperor of the French and the King of Sardinia into Milan, it was not likely that domestic news of a purely parliamentary interest could occupy all the attention of Englishmen. It was not merely a great foreign war that the people of these islands looked on with such absorbing interest. It was what seemed to be the birth of a new era for Europe. There were some who felt inclined to echo the celebrated saying of pit after osterlitz and declare that we might as well roll up the map of Europe. In the victories of the French, many saw the first indications of the manifest destiny of the air of Waterloo, the man who represented a defeat. To many, the strength of the Austrian military system had seemed the great bulwark of conservatism in Europe. And now that was gone, shriveled like a straw in fire, shattered like a potchard, surprised, bewilderment rather than partisan passion of any kind predominated over England. In such a condition of things the general election passed over, hardly noticed. When it was over it was found that the Conservatives had gained indeed, but had not gained nearly enough to enable them to hold office unless by the toleration of their rivals. The rivals soon made up their minds that they had tolerated them long enough. A meeting of the Liberal Party was held at Willis's rooms once the scene of all Mac's famous assemblies. There the chiefs of the Liberal Party met to adjust their several disputes and to arrange on some plan of united action. Lord Palmerston represented one section of the party, Lord John Russell another. Mr. Sidney Herbert spoke for the Peelites. Not a few persons were surprised to find Mr. Bright among the speakers. It was well known that he liked Lord Palmerston little, that it could hardly be said he liked the Tories any less. But Mr. Bright was for a reform bill, from whomever it should come. And he thought perhaps that the Liberal chiefs had learned a lesson. The party contrived to agree upon a principle of action and a compact was entered into, the effect of which was soon made clear at the meeting of the new Parliament. A vote of want of confidence was at once moved by the Marquis of Huntington, Eld's son of the Duke of Devonshire. And even then marked out by common report as a future leader of the Liberal Party. Lord Hardington had sat but a short time in the House of Commons and had thus far given no indications of any eloquence or even of any taste for politics. Nothing could more effectively illustrate one of the peculiarities of the English political system than the choice of the Marquis of Hardington as the figurehead of this important movement against the Tory government. Lord Hardington did not then, nor for many years afterwards, show any greater capacity for politics than is shown by an ordinary county member. He seemed rather below than above the average of the House of Commons. As leaders subsequently of the Liberal Party in that House, he can hardly be said to have shown as yet any higher qualities than a strong good sense and a manly firmness of purpose combined with such skill in debate as constant practice under the most favorable circumstances must give to any man, not absolutely devoid of all capacity for self-improvement. But even of the moderate abilities which Lord Hardington proved that he possessed in the Conservative Parliament of 1874, he had given no indication in 1859. He was put up to move the vote of want of confidence as the air of the Great Wake House of Devonshire. His appearance in the debate would have carried just as much significance with it if he had simply moved his resolution without in the companying word. The debate that followed was long and bitter. It was enlivened by more than even the usual amount of personalities. Mr. Disraeli and Sir James Graham had a sharp passage of arms in the course of which Sir James Graham used an expression that has been often quoted since. He described Mr. Disraeli as the red Indian of debate, who, by the use of the tomahawk, has cut his way to power and by recurrence to the scalping system hopes to prevent the loss of it. The scalping system, however, did not succeed this time. The division when it came on after three nights of discussion showed a majority of thirteen in favour of Lord Hardington's motion. The results surprised no one. Everybody knew that the moment the various sections of the liberal party contrived a combination the fate of the ministry was sealed. Willis's rooms had anticipated the decision of St. Stephens. Rather perhaps might it be said that St. Stephens had only recorded the decision of Willis's rooms. The queen invited Lord Granville to form a ministry. Granville was still a young man to be Prime Minister, considering how the habits of parliamentary life had changed since the days of Pitt. He was not much over forty years of age. He had filled many ministerial offices, however, and had an experience of parliament which may be said to have begun with his majority. After some nine years spent in the House of Commons, the death of his father called him in 1846 to the House of Lords. He made no assumption of commanding abilities, nor had he any pretense to the higher class of eloquence or statesmanship. But he was a thorough man of the world and of parliament. He understood English ways of feeling and of acting. He was a clever debater and had the genial art, very useful and very rare in English public life, of keeping even antagonists in good humor. Probably a better man could not have been found to suit all parties as Prime Minister of England, in times when there was no particular stress or strain to try the energies and the patience of the country. Still, there was some surprise felt that the Queen should have passed over two men of years and of fame, like Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, and have invited a much younger man at such a moment to undertake for the first time to form a ministry. An explanation was soon given on the part of the Queen, or at least with her consent. The Queen had naturally thought in the first instance of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. But she found it a very invidious and unwelcome task to make a choice between two statesmen so full of years and honors and possessing so just a claim to her consideration. Her Majesty therefore thought a compromise might best be got at between the more conservative section of the Liberal Party, which Lord Palmerston appeared to represent, and the more popular section led by Lord John Russell, if both could be united under the guidance of Lord Granville, the acknowledged leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. The attempt was not successful. Lord John Russell declined to serve under Lord Granville, but declared himself perfectly willing to serve under Lord Palmerston. This declaration at once put an end to Lord Granville's chances, and to the whole difficulty which had been anticipated. There had been a coldness for some time between Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. The two men were undoubtedly rivals, at least all the world persisted in regarding them in such a light. It was not thought possible that Lord John Russell would submit to take office under Lord Palmerston. On this occasion, however, as upon others, Lord John Russell showed a spirit of self-abnegation for which the public in general did not give him credit. The difficulty was settled to the satisfaction of everyone, Lord Granville included. Lord Granville was not in the slightest degree impatient to become Prime Minister, and indeed probably felt relieved from a very unwelcome responsibility when he was allowed to accept office under the premiership of Lord Palmerston. Lord Palmerston was now Prime Minister for life. Until his death, he held the office with the full approval of Conservatives as well as Liberals, and they indeed with much warmer approbation from the majority of the Conservatives than from many of the Liberals. Palmerston formed a strong ministry. Mr. Gladston was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord John Russell had the office of Foreign Secretary. Sir G. C. Lewis was Home Secretary. Mr. Sidney Herbert, Minister for War. The Duke of Newcastle took charge of the colonies. Mr. Cardwell accepted the Irish secretarieship, and Sir Charles Wood was Secretary for India. Lord Palmerston endeavored to propitiate the Manchester Liberals by offering a seat in the government to Mr. Cobden and to Mr. Milner Gibson. Mr. Cobden was at the time on his way home from the United States. In his absence he had been elected Member for Rochdale, and in his absence too the office of President of the Board of Trade in the new ministry had been put at his disposal. His friends eagerly awaited his return and when the steamer bringing him home was near Liverpool a number of them went out to meet him before his landing. They boarded the steamer and astonished him with the news that the Tories were out, that the Liberals were in, that he was Member for Rochdale, and that Lord Palmerston had offered him a place in the new ministry. Cobden took the news which related to himself with his usual quiet modesty. He declined to say anything about the offer he had received from Lord Palmerston until he should have the opportunity of giving his answer directly to Lord Palmerston himself. This of course was only a necessary courtesy, and most of Cobden's friends were of opinion that he ought to accept Lord Palmerston's offer. Cobden explained afterwards that the office put at his disposal was exactly that which would have best suited him, and in which he thought that he could do some good. He also frankly declared that the salary attached to the office would be a consideration of much importance to him. Mr. Cobden's friends were well aware that he had invested the greater part of his property in American railways, which just then were not very profitable investments, although on the long run they justified his confidence in their success. At the moment he was a poor man. Yet he did not in his own mind hesitate a moment about Lord Palmerston's offer. He disapproved of Palmerston's foreign policy, of his military expenditure, and his love of interfering in the disputes of the continent, and he felt that he could not conscientiously accept office under such a leader. He refused the offer decisively, and the chief promoter of the repeal of the corn laws never held any place in an English administration. Cobden, however, advised his friend Mr. Milner Gibson to avail himself of Lord Palmerston's offer, and Mr. Gibson acted on the advice. The opinions of Mr. Cobden and Mr. Gibson were the same on most subjects, but Mr. Gibson had never stood out before the country in so conspicuous a position as an opponent of Lord Palmerston. Perhaps Cobston's advice was given in the spirit of Dr. Parr, who encouraged a modest friend to adopt the ordinary pronunciation of the Egyptian city's name. Dr. Bentley and I, sir, must call it Alexandria. But I think you may call it Alexandria. Mr. Cobden felt really grateful to Lord Palmerston for his offer and for his manner of making it. I had no personal feeling whatever he said to his constituents at Rochdale in the course I took with regard to Mr. Palmerston's offer. If I had had any feeling of personal hostility, which I never had toward him, for he is of that happy nature which cannot create a personal enemy, his kind and manly offer would have instantly disarmed me. Lord Palmerston had not made any tender of office to Mr. Bright, and he wrote to Mr. Bright frankly explaining his reasons. Mr. Bright had been speaking out too strongly to ring his recent reform campaign, to make his presence in the cabinet acceptable to some of the wig magnets for whom seats had to be found. It is curious to notice now the conviction which at that time seemed to be universal that Mr. Cobden was a much more moderate reformer than Mr. Bright. The impression was altogether wrong. There was in Mr. Bright's nature a certain element of conservatism, which showed itself clearly enough the moment the particular reforms which he thought necessary were carried. Mr. Cobden would have gone on advancing in the direction of reform as long as he lived. It was Mr. Cobden's conciliatory manner, and an easy genuine bonhomie, worthy of Palmerston himself, that made the difference between the two men in popular estimation. Not much difference to be sure was ever to be noticed between them in public affairs. Only once had they voted in opposite lobbies of the House of Commons, and that was, if we are not mistaken, on the Maneuth Grant. And Mr. Bright afterwards adopted the views of Mr. Cobden. But where there was any difference, even of speculative opinion, Mr. Cobden went further than Mr. Bright along the path of radicalism. Mr. Cobden's sweet temper and good humor disposition made it hard for him to express strong opinions and tones of anger. It is doubtful whether a man of his temperament ever could be a really great orator. Indignation is even more effective as an element in the making of great speeches than in the making of small verses. The closing days of the year were made memorable by the death of Macaulay. He had been raised to the peerage, and had had some hopes of being able to take occasional part in the stately debates of the House of Lords. But his health almost suddenly broke down, and his voice was never heard in the upper chamber. He died prematurely, having only entered on his sixtieth year. We have already studied the literary character of this most successful literary man. Macaulay had had, as he often said himself, a singularly happy life, although it was not without its severe losses and its griefs. His career was one of uninterrupted success. His books brought him fame, influence, social position and wealth all at once. He never made a failure. The world only applauded one book more than the other, the second speech more than the first. Macaulay the essayist, Macaulay the historian, Macaulay the ballad writer, Macaulay the parliamentary orator, Macaulay the brilliant inexhaustible talker. He was alike, it might appear, supreme in everything he chose to do or to attempt. After his death there came a natural reaction, and the reaction, as is always the case, was inclined to go too far. People began to find out that Macaulay had done too many things, that he did not do anything as he might have done, that he was too brilliant, that he was only brilliant, that he was not really brilliant at all, but only superficial and showy. The disparagement was more unjust by far than even the extravagant estimate. Macaulay was not the paragon, the ninth wonder of the world for which people once set him down, but he was undoubtedly a great literary man. He was also a man of singularly noble character. He was, in a literary sense, egotistic. That is to say he thought and talked and wrote a great deal about his works at himself, but he was one of the most unselfish men that ever lived. He appears to have enjoyed advancement, success, fame and money, only because these enabled him to give pleasure and support to the members of his family. He was attached to his family, especially to his sisters with the tenderest affection. His real nature seems only to have thoroughly shown out when in their society. There he was loving, sportive, even to joyous frolicksomeness, a glad schoolboy almost to the very end. He was remarkably generous and charitable, even to strangers. His hand was almost always open, but he gave so unosentatiously that it was not until after his death half his kindly deeds became known. He had a spirit which was absolutely above any of the corrupting temptations of money and rank. He was very poor at one time, and during his poverty he was beginning to make his reputation in the House of Commons. It is often said that a poor man feels nowhere so much out of place, nowhere so much at a disadvantage, nowhere so much humiliated as in the House of Commons. Macaulay felt nothing of the kind. He bore himself as easily and steadfastly as though he had been the eldest son of a proud and wealthy family. It did not seem to have occurred to him when he was poor that money was lacking to the dignity of his intellect and his manhood, or when he was rich that money added to it. Certain defects of temper and manner rather than of character he had, which caused men often to misunderstand him and sometimes to dislike him. He was apt to be overbearing in tone, and to show himself a little too confident of his splendid gifts and acquirements. His marvelous memory, his varied reading, his overwhelming power of argument. He trampled on men's prejudices too heedlessly, was inclined to treat ignorance as if it were a crime, and to make dullness feel that it had caused to be ashamed of itself. Such defects as these are hardly worth mentioning and would not be mentioned here, but they served to explain some of the misconceptions which were formed of Macaulay by many during his lifetime and some of the antagonisms which he unconsciously created. Absolutely without literary affectation, undepressed by early poverty, unspoiled by later and almost unequaled success, he was an independent, quiet, self-relying man, who in all his noon of fame found most happiness in the companionship and sympathy of those he loved, and who from first to last was loved most tenderly by those who knew him best. He was buried in Westminster Abbey in the first week of the new year, and there truly took his place among his peers. End of Section 22 Section 23 of a history of our own times, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 41 The French Treaty and the Paper-Duties, Part 1 Lord Palmerston's ministry came into power in troubleous times. All over the world there seemed to be an upheaving of old systems. Since 1848 there had not been such a period of political and social commotion. A new war had broken out in China. The peace of Villa Franca had only patched up the Italian system. Everyone saw that there was much convulsion to come yet before Italy was likely to settle down into order. From across the Atlantic came the first murmurings of civil war. John Brown had made his famous raid into Harper's Ferry, a town on the borders of Virginia and Maryland, for the purpose of helping slaves to escape, and he was captured, tried for the attempt, and executed. He met his death with the composure of an antique hero. Victor Hugo declared in one of his most impassioned sentences that the gibbet of John Brown was the calvary of the anti-slavery movement, and assuredly the execution of the brave old man was the death sentence of slavery. Abraham Lincoln had just been adopted by the National Republican Convention at Chicago as candidate for the presidency, and even here in England people were beginning to understand what that meant. At home there were distractions of other kinds. Some of the greatest strikes ever known in England had just broken out, and a political panic was further perplexed by the quarrels of class with class. A profound distrust of Louis Napoleon prevailed almost everywhere. The fact that he had been recently our ally did not do much to diminish this distrust. On the contrary, it helped in a certain sense to increase it. Against what state, he was asked, did he enter into alliance with us? Against Russia to defend Turkey? Not at all. Louis Napoleon always acknowledged that he despised the Turks and felt sure nothing could ever be made of them. It was to have his revenge for Moscow and the Barassina people said that he struck at Russia, and he made us his mere tools in the enterprise. Now he turns upon Austria to make heritone for other wrongs done against the ambition of the Bonaparts, and he has conquered. Austria, believed by all men to have the greatest military organisation in Europe, lies crushed at his feet. What next? Russia perhaps, or England? The official classes in this country had from the first been in sympathy with Austria, and would, if they could, have had England take up her quarrel. The Tories were Austrian for the most part. Not much of the feeling for Italy, which was afterwards so enthusiastic and effusive, had yet sprung up in England among the Liberals and the bulk of the population. People did not admit that it was an affair of Italy at all. They saw in it rather an evidence of the ambition of Piedmont. When soon after the close of the short war it became known that Sardinia was to pay for the alliance of France by the surrender of Nice and Savoy, the indignation in this country became irrepressible. The whole thing seemed a base transaction. The House of Savoy, said an indignant orator in Parliament, had sprung from the womb of those mountains. Its connection with them should be as eternal as the endurance of the mountains themselves. Men saw in the conduct of Louis Napoleon only an evidence of the most ignoble rapacity. It is of no use, they said, talking of alliances and cordial understandings with such a man. There is in him no faith and no scruple. Ask me he. Tomorrow he will try to humble and punish England as he has already humbled and punished Austria. His alliance with us will prove to be of as much account as did his alliance with Sardinia. He did not scruple to ring territory from the confederate whose devoted friend and patron he professed to be. What should we have to expect? We against whom he cherished up a national and a family hatred, if by any chance he should be enabled to strike us a sudden blow. The feeling therefore in England was almost entirely one of revived dread and distrust of Louis Napoleon. There was a good deal to be said for his bargain about Savoy and Nice by those who were anxious to defend it, but taken as a whole it was a singularly unfortunate transaction. It turned back the attention of conquerors to that old-fashioned plan of partition which sanguine people were beginning to hope was gone out of European politics like the sacking of towns and the holding of princes to ransom. It is likely that Louis Napoleon thought of this himself somewhat bitterly later on in his career when the Germans adopted his own principle although as they themselves pleaded with somewhat better excuse, for they only extorted territory from an enemy, he extorted it from a friend. There could be no pretense that it was other than an active extortion. Even the pide-montese statesman who conducted the transaction, Cavour cleverly dodged out of it himself, did not venture to profess that they were doing it willingly. It had to be done. Perhaps it had to be done by Louis Napoleon as well as by Victor Emmanuel. Cavour had compelled the Emperor of the French to make a stand for Italy, but the Emperor could hardly face his own people without telling them that France was to have something for her money and her blood. Wars for an idea generally end like this. On the whole, however, let it be owned that the Italians had made a good bargain. Savoy and Nice were provinces of which the Italian nationality was very doubtful, of which the Italian sentiment was perhaps more doubtful still. Louis Napoleon had the worst of the bargain in that, as in most other transactions, wherein he thought he was doing a clever thing. He went very near a stranging altogether the friendly feeling of the English people from him and from France. The invasion panic sprang up again here in a moment. The volunteer forces began to increase in numbers and in ardor. Plans of coast fortification and of national defenses generally were thrust upon Parliament from various quarters. A feverish anxiety about the security of the island took possession of many mines that were usually tranquil and shrewd enough. It really seemed, as if the country were looking out for what Mr. Disraeli called, a short time afterwards, when he was not an office and was therefore not responsible to public clamor for the defense of our coasts, a midnight foray from our imperial ally. The venerable Lord Lindhurst took on himself in a special the task of rousing the nation. With a vigor of manner and a literary freshness of style, well worthy of his earlier and best years, he devoted himself to the work of inflaming the public spirit of England against Louis Napoleon, a graceful and accurate lawyer, Demosthenes, denouncing a fill-up of the Opéra Comique. If I am masked, said Lord Lindhurst, whether I cannot place reliance upon the Emperor Napoleon, I reply with confidence that I cannot, because he is in a situation in which he cannot place reliance upon himself. If the calamity should come, he asked. If the conflagration should take place, what words can describe the extent of the calamity or what imagination can paint the overwhelming ruin that would fall upon us? The most harmless and even reasonable actions on the part of France were made aground of suspicion and alarm by some agitated critics. A great London newspaper saw strong reason for uneasiness in the fact that at this moment the French government is pushing with extraordinary zeal the suspicious project of the impracticable Suez Canal. We have already remarked upon the fact that up to this time there was no evidence in the public opinion of England of any sympathy with Italian independence, such as became the fashion a year later. At least if there was any such sympathy here and there, it did not to any perceptible degree modify the distrust which was felt toward the Emperor Napoleon. Mrs. Barrett Browning's passionate praises of the Emperor, and lamentations for the failure of his great deed, were regarded as the harmless and gushing sentimentalisms of a poet and a woman. Indeed, a poet with many people seems a sort of woman. The King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel, had visited England not long before and had been received with public addresses and other such demonstrations of admiration here and there, but even his concrete presence had not succeeded in making impression enough to secure him the general sympathy of the English public. Some association in Edinburgh had had the singular bad taste to send him an address of welcome in which they congratulated him on his opposition to the Holy See, as if he were another Achille or Gavazzi come over to denounce the Pope. The King's reply was measured out with a crushing calmness and dignity. It coldly reminded his Edinburgh admirers of the fact, which we may presume they had forgotten, that he was descended from a long line of Catholic princes and was the sovereign of subjects almost entirely Catholic, and that he could not therefore accept with satisfaction words of reprobation injurious to the head of the church to which he belonged. We only recall to memory this unpleasant little incident for the purpose of pointing a moral which it might of itself suggest. It is much to be feared that the popular enthusiasm for the unity and independence of Italy, which afterwards flamed out in England, was only enthusiasm against the Pope. Something no doubt was due to the brilliancy of Garibaldi's exploits in 1860 and to the romantic halo which at that time and for long after surrounded Gaudibaldi himself. But no Englishman who thinks coolly over the subject will venture to deny that nine out of every ten enthusiasts for Italian liberty at that time were in favour of Italy because Italy was supposed to be in spiritual rebellion against the Pope. The ministry attempted great things. They undertook a complete remodeling of the custom system, a repeal of the paper duties, and a reform bill. The news that a commercial treaty with France was in preparation broke on the world somewhat abruptly in the early days of 1860. The arrangement was made in a manner to set old formalism everywhere shaking its solemn head and holding up its alarmed hands. The French treaty was made without any direct assistance from professional diplomacy. It was made indeed in despite a professional diplomacy. It was the result of private conversations and an informal agreement between the Emperor of the French and Mr. Cobden. The first idea of such an arrangement came, we believe, from Mr. Bright, but it was Mr. Cobden who undertook to see the Emperor Napoleon and exchange ideas with him on the subject. The Emperor of the French, to do him justice, was entirely above the conventional formalities of imperial dignity. He sometimes ran the risk of seeming undignified in the eyes of the vulgar by the disregard of all formality with which he was willing to allow himself to be approached. Although Mr. Cobden had never held official position of any kind in England, the Emperor received him very cordially and entered readily into his ideas on the subject of a treaty between England and France, which would remove many of the prohibitions and restrictions then interfering with a liberal interchange of the productions of the two nations. Napoleon III was a free trader or something nearly approaching to it. His cousin, Prince Napoleon, was still more advanced and more decided in his views of political economy. The Emperor was moreover a good deal under the influence of Michael Chevalier, the distinguished French publicist and economist, who from having been a member of the socialistic sect of the famous Père-en-Fontain had come to be a practical politician and an economist of a very high order. Mr. Cobden had the assistance of all the influence Mr. Gladstone could bring to bear. It is not likely that Lord Palmerston cared much about the French Treaty Project, but at least he did not oppose it. Mr. Cobden was under the impression, and probably not without reason, that the officials of the English Embassy in Paris were rather inclined to thwart than to assist his efforts. But if such a feeling prevailed it was perhaps less a dislike of the proposed arrangement between England and France than an objection to the informal and irregular way of bringing it about. Diplomacy has always been mechanical and conventional in its working, and the English diplomatic service has even among diplomatic services been conspicuous for its worship of routine. There were many difficulties in the way on both sides. The French people were for the most part opposed to the principles of free trade. The French manufacturing bodies were almost all against it. Some of the most influential politicians of the country were uncompromising opponents of free trade. Monsieur Thierre, for example, was an almost impassioned protectionist. It may be admitted at once that if the Emperor of the French had had to submit the provisions of his treaty to the vote of an independent legislative assembly, he could not have secured its adoption. He had, in fact, to enter into the engagement by virtue of his imperial will and power. On the other hand, a strong objection was felt in this country just then to any friendly negotiation or arrangement whatever with the Emperor. His schemes in Savoy and Nice had created so much dislike and distrust of him that many people felt as if war between the two states were more likely to come than any sincere and friendly understanding on any subject. As soon as it became known that the treaty was in course of negotiation, a storm of indignation broke out in this country. Most of the newspapers denounced the treaty as a mean arrangement with a man whose policy was only perfidious and whose vows were as little to be trusted as Dicer's oaths. Not only the Conservative Party condemned and denounced the proposed agreement, but a large proportion of the Liberals were bitter against it. Some critics declared that Mr. Cobden had simply been taken in, that the French Emperor had bubbled him. Others accused Mr. Cobden of having entered into a conspiracy with the Emperor to enable Louis Napoleon to jockey his own subjects. Such was the phrase adopted by one influential member of Parliament, the late Mr. Horseman, then a speaker with a certain gift of rattling metallic declamation. Others again declared that the compromise effected by the treaty was in itself a breach of the principle of free trade. It was observable that this argument usually came from lately converted or still unconverted protectionists. This is the argument founded on the arbitrariness of the Imperial action was most strenuously enforced by those who at home were least inclined to encourage the principle of government by the people. Thus Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, and even Mr. Gladstone found themselves in the odd position of having to repel the charge of renouncing free trade and rejecting the principles of representative government. It is hardly necessary to defend the course taken by Mr. Cobden in accepting a compromise where he could not possibly obtain an absolutely free interchange of commodities. The most devoted champion of the freedom of religious worship is not to be blamed if he enters into an agreement with some foreign government to obtain for its non-conforming subjects a qualified degree of religious liberty. An opponent of capital punishment would not be held to have surrendered his principle because he endeavored to reduce the number of capital sentences where he saw no hope of the immediate abolition of the death penalty. Nor do we see that there was anything inconsistent in Mr. Cobden's entering into an agreement with the Emperor of the French, even though that agreement was to be carried out in France by an arbitrary exercise of Imperial will, such as would have been intolerable and impossible in England. To lay down a principle of this kind would be only to say that no statesman shall conclude an arrangement of any sort with the rulers of a state not so liberal as his own in its system of government. Of course no one ever thinks of arguing for such a principle in the regular diplomatic negotiations between states. Those who found fault with Mr. Cobden because he was willing to assent to an arrangement which the Emperor Napoleon imposed upon his subjects must have known that our official statesmen were every day entering into engagements with one or the other European sovereign which were to be carried out by that sovereign on the same arbitrary principle. There was in fact no soundness or sincerity in such objections to Mr. Cobden's work. Some men opposed it because they were protectionists pure and simple. Some opposed it because they detested the Emperor Napoleon. The ground of objection with not a few was their dislike of Mr. Cobden and the Manchester School. The hostility of some came from their repugnance to seeing anything done out of the regular and conventional way. All these objections coalesced against the Treaty and the Chancellor of the Exchequer's budget. But the eloquence of Mr. Gladstone and the strength of the government prevailed against them all. End of Section 23. Section 24 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami, Chapter 41, The French Treaty and the Paper Duties, Part 2. The effect of the treaty so far as France was concerned was an engagement virtually to remove all prohibitory duties on all the staples of British manufacture and to reduce the duties on English coal and coke, bar and pig iron, tools, machinery, yarns, flax and hemp. England for her part proposed to sweep away all duties on manufactured goods and to reduce greatly the duties on foreign wines. In one sense, of course, England gave more than she got, but that one sense is only the protectionist sense, more properly, nonsense. England could not with any due regard for the real meaning of words be said to have given up anything when she enabled her people to buy light and excellent French wines at a cheap price. She could not be said to have sacrificed anything when she secured for her consumers the opportunity of buying French manufactured articles at a natural price. The whole principle of free trade stamps as ridiculous the theory that because our neighbor foolishly cuts himself off from the easy purchase of the articles we have to sell, it is our business to cut ourselves off from the easy purchase of the articles he has to sell and we wish to buy. We gave France much more reduction of duty than we got, but the reduction was in every instance a direct benefit to our consumers. The introduction of light wines, for example, made after a while a very remarkable and on the whole a very beneficial change in the habits of our people. The heavier and more fiery drinks became almost disused by large classes of the population. The light wines of Bordeaux began to be familiar to almost every table. The portentous branded ports, which carried gout in their very breath were gradually banished. Some of the debates, however, on this particular part of the budget recall to memory the days of Colonel Sybthorpe and his dread of the importation of foreign ways among our countrymen. Many prophetic voices declared in the House of Commons that with the greater use of French wines would come the rapid adoption of what were called French morals. That the maids and matrons of England would be led by the treaty to the drinking of claret and from the drinking of claret to the ways of the French novelist's odious heroine, Madame Bovary. Appalling pictures were drawn of the orgies to go on in the shops of confectioners and pastry cooks who had a license to sell the light wines. The virtue of English women, it was insisted, would never be able to stand this new and terrible mechanism of destruction. She who was far above the temptations of the public house would be drawn easily into the more gentile allurements of the wine-selling confectioner's shop. And in every such shop would be the depraved conventional foreigner, the wretch with a moustache and without morals lying in wait to accomplish at last his long-boasted conquests of the blonde misses of England. One impassioned speaker glowing into a genuine prophetic fury as he spoke warned his hearers of the near approach of a time when a man suddenly entering one of the accursed confectioner's shops in quest of the missing female members of his family would find his wife lying drunk in one room and his daughter disgraced in another. In spite of all this, however, Mr. Gladstone succeeded in carrying this part of his budget. He carried, too, as far as the House of Commons was concerned, his important measure for the abolition of the duty on paper. The duty on paper was the last remnant of the ancient system of finance which pressed severely on journalism. The stamp duty was originally imposed with the object of checking the growth of seditious newspapers. It was reduced, increased, reduced again, and increased again. Until in the early part of the century, it stood at four pence on each copy of a newspaper issued. In 1836, it was brought down to the penny, represented by the red stamp on every paper which most of us can still remember. There was, besides this, a considerable duty. Six pence or some such sum on every advertisement in a newspaper. Finally, there was the heavy duty on the paper material itself. A journal, therefore, could not come into existence until it had made provision for all these factitious and unnecessary expenses. The consequence was that a newspaper was a costly thing. Its possession was the luxury of the rich. Those who could afford less had to be content with an occasional read of a paper. It was common for a number of persons to club together and take in a paper which they read by turns. The general understanding being that he whose turn came last remained in possession of the journal. It was considered the fair compensation for his late reception of the news that he should come into the full proprietorship of the precious newspaper. The price of a daily paper, then, was uniformly six pence, and no six-penny paper contained anything like the news or went to a tenth of the daily expense which is supplied in the one case and undertaken in the other by the penny papers of our day. Gradually, the burdens on journalism and on the reading public were reduced. The advertisement duty was abolished. In 1855, the stamp duty was abolished. That is to say, the stamp was either removed altogether or was allowed to stand as postage. On the strength of this reform, many new and cheap journals were started. Two of them in London, the Daily Telegraph and the Morning Star, acquired influence and reputation. But the effect of the duty on the paper material still told heavily against cheap journalism. It became painfully evident that a newspaper could not be sold profitably for a penny while that duty remained and therefore a powerful agitation was set on foot for its removal. The agitation was carried on, not on behalf of the interests of newspaper speculation but on behalf of the reading public and of the education of the people. It is not necessary now to enter upon any argument to show that the publication of such a paper as the Daily News or the Daily Telegraph must be a matter of immense importance in popular education. But at that time, there were still men who argued that newspaper literature could only be kept up to a proper level of instruction and decorum by being made factitiously costly. It was the creed of many that cheap newspapers meant the establishment of a daily propaganda of socialism, communism, red republicanism, blasphemy, bad spelling, and general immorality. Mr. Gladstone undertook the congenial task of abolishing the duty on paper. He was met with strong opposition from both sides of the house. The paper manufacturers made it at once a question of protection to their own trade. They dreaded the competition of all manner of adventurous rivals under a free system. Many of the paper manufacturers had been staunch free traders when it was a case of free trade to be applied to the manufacturers of other people, but they cried out against having the ingredients of the unwelcome chalice commended to their own lips. Vested interests in the newspaper business itself also opposed Mr. Gladstone. The high-priced and well-established journals did not by any means relish the idea of cheap and unfettered competition. They therefore preached without reserve the doctrine that in journalism cheap meant nasty, and that the only way to keep the English press pure and wholesome was to continue the monopoly to their own publications. The House of Commons is a good deal governed directly and indirectly by interests. It is influenced by them directly as when the railway interest, the mining interest, the brewing interest or the landed interest boldly stands up through its acknowledged representatives in parliament to fight for its own hand. It is also much influenced indirectly. Every powerful interest in the House can contrive to enlist the sympathies and get the support of men who have no direct concern one way or another in some proposed measure, who know nothing about it, and do not want to be troubled with any knowledge and who are therefore easily led to see that the side on which some of their friends are arrayed must be the right side. There was a good deal of rallying up of such men who sustained the cause of the papermaking and journal-selling monopoly. The result was that although Mr. Gladstone carried his resolutions for the abolition of the excise on paper, he only carried them by dwindling majorities. The second reading was carried by a majority of 53, the third by a majority of only nine. The effect of this was to encourage some members of the House of Lords to attempt the task of getting rid of Mr. Gladstone's proposed reform altogether. An amendment to reject the resolutions repealing the tax was proposed by Lord Montagle and received the support of Lord Darby and of Lord Lindhurst. Lord Lindhurst was then just entering on his 89th year. His growing infirmities made it necessary that a temporary railing should be constructed in front of his seat, in order that he might lean on it and be supported. But although his physical strength, thus needed support, his speech gave no evidence of failing intellect. Even his voice could hardly be said to have lost any of its clear, light, musical strength. He entered into a long and a very telling argument to show that although the peers had abandoned their claim to alter a money bill, they had still a right to refuse their assent to a repeal of taxation, and that in this particular instance, they were justified in doing so. There was not much perhaps in this latter part of the argument. Lord Lindhurst fell back on some of his familiar alarms about the condition of Europe and the possible schemes of Louis Napoleon. And out of these he extracted reasons for contending that we ought to maintain unimpaired the revenue of the country to be ready to meet emergencies and encounter unexpected liabilities. In an ordinary time, not much attention would be paid to criticism of this kind. It would be regarded as the duty of the finance minister, the government, and the House of Commons to see that the wants of the coming year were properly provided for in taxation, and when the government and the House of Commons had once decided that a certain amount was sufficient, the House of Lords would hardly think that Anith lay any responsibility for a formal revision of the ministerial scheme. Some peer would in all probability make some such observations as those of Lord Lindhurst, but they would be accepted as mere passing criticisms of the ministerial scheme and it would not occur to anyone to think of taking a division on the suggested amendment. In this instance, the House of Lords was undoubtedly influenced by a dislike for the proposed measure of reduction, for the manner in which it had been introduced, for its ministerial author, or at least for his general policy, and for some of the measures by which it had been accompanied. It is not unlikely, for example, that Lord Lindhurst himself felt something like resentment for the policy which answered all his eloquent warnings about the schemes of the Emperor Napoleon by producing a treaty of commerce with the supposedly invader of England. The repeal of the paper duty was known also to have the warm advocacy of Mr. Bright and it was advocated by the Morning Star, a journal greatly influenced by Mr. Bright's opinions and in which popular rumors said, very untruly, that Mr. Bright was a writer of frequent leading articles. Thus the repeal of the paper duty got to seem in the eyes of many peers a proposal connected somehow with the spread of democracy, the support of the Manchester School, and the designs of Napoleon III. The question which the House of Lords had to face was somewhat serious. The Commons had repealed attacks. Was it constitutionally in the power of the House of Lords to reimpose it? Was not this, it was asked, simply to assert for the House of Lords a taxing power equal to that of the Commons? Was it not to reduce to nothing the principle that taxation and representation go together? Suppose instead of reenacting the paper duty, the House of Lords had thought fit to introduce into the new budget a new and different tax. What was there to hinder them on their own principle from doing so? On the other hand, those who took Lord Lindhurst's view of the question insisted that when the budget scheme was laid before them for their approval, the House of Lords had as good a right constitutionally to reject as to accept any part of it, and that to strike out a clause in a budget was quite a different thing from taking the initiative in the imposition of taxation. It was contended that the House of Lords had not only a constitutional right to act as they were invited to do in the case of the paper duty, but that as a matter of fact, they had often done so, and that the country had never challenged their authority. The Conservative Party and the House of Lords can always carry any division, and in this instance, it was well known that they could marshal a strong majority against Mr. Gladstone's proposed remission of taxation. But it was commonly expected that they would, on this occasion, as they had done on many others, abstained from using their overpowering numerical strength, that prudent councils would prevail in the end, and that the amendment would not be pressed to a division. The hope, however, was deceived. The House of Lords was in an unusually aggressive mood. The majority were resolved to show that they could do something. Mr. Disraeli and one of his nobles had irreverently said of the Lords that when the peers accomplish a division, they cackle as if they had laid an egg. On this occasion, they were determined to have a division. The majority against the government was overwhelming. For the second reading of the paper duty bill, 90 peers voted, and there were 14 proxies in all, 104. For Lord Montagle's amendment, there were 161 votes of peers, actually present, and 32 proxies, or 193 in all. The majority against the government was therefore 89, and the repeal of the excise duty on paper was done with for that session. The peers went home cackling. Not a few of them, however, a little in doubt as to the wisdom of the course they had pursued, a little afraid to think on what they had done. The House of Lords had not taken any very active step in politics for some time, and many of them were uncertain as to the manner in which the country would regard their unwonted exertion of authority. End of Section 24. Section 25 of a history of our own times, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 41, The French Treaty and the Paper Duties, Part 3. The country took it rather coolly on the whole. Lord Palmerston promptly came forward and moved in the House of Commons for a committee to ascertain and report on the practice of each house with regard to the several descriptions of bills imposing or repealing taxes. By thus interposing at once, he hoped to take the wind out of the sails of a popular agitation which he disliked and would gladly have avoided. The committee took two months to consider their report. They found by a majority of fourteen a series of resolutions the effect that the privilege of the House of Commons did not extend so far as to make it actually unconstitutional for the lords to reject a bill for the repeal of attacks. Mr. Walpole was the chairman of the committee, and he drew up the report which cited a considerable number of precedents in support of the view adopted by the majority. Mr. Bright, who was a member of the committee, did not assent to this principle. He prepared a draft report of his own in which he contended for the very reasonable view that if the lords might prolong or reimpose a tax by refusing their assent to its repeal, when that repeal had been voted by the House of Commons, the House of Commons could not have absolute control over the taxation of the country. It seems clear that whatever may have been the technical right of the lords, or however precedent may have occasionally appeared to justify the course which they took, Mr. Bright was warranted in asserting that the Constitution never gave the House of Lords any power of reimposing a tax which the Commons had repealed. The truth is that if the majority of the House of Commons in favor of the repeal of the paper duties had been anything considerable, the House of Lords would never have ventured to interfere. There was an impression among many peers that the remission was not much liked, even by the majority of those who voted for it. Gladstone has done it all, was the Commons saying, and it was insisted that Gladstone had done it only to satisfy Mr. Bright and the Manchester radicals. Not a few of the peers felt convinced that the majority of the House of Commons would secretly bless them for their intervention. Lord Palmerston followed up the report of the committee by proposing a series of resolutions which he probably considered equal to the occasion. The object of the resolutions was to reaffirm the position of the claims of the House of Commons in regard to questions of taxation. That, at least, was the ostensible object. The real object was to do something which should leave a way of retreat open to the Lords in another session, and at the same time make those who clamored against their intervention believe that the ministry was not indifferent to the rights of the representative chamber. The first resolution affirmed that the right of granting aids and supplies to the Crown is in the Commons alone as an essential part of their constitution and the limitation of all such grants as to the matter, manner, measure, and time is only in them. The second resolution declared that although the Lords had rejected bills relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yet the exercise of such a power had not been frequent and was justly regarded by the House of Commons with peculiar jealousy as affecting the right of the Commons to grant the supplies. The third resolution merely laid it down that to guard for the future against an undue exercise of that power by the Lords and to secure to the Commons their rightful control over taxation and supply, the House affirmed its right to impose and remit taxes and to frame bills of supply. Such resolutions were not likely to satisfy the more impatient among the Liberals. An appeal was made to the people generally to thunder a national protest against the House of Lords. But the country did not, it must be owned, respond very tumultuously to the invitation. Great public meetings were held in London and the large towns of the North and much anger was expressed at the conduct of the Lords. The Morning Star newspaper led the agitation. It had recourse to the ingenious device of announcing every day in large letters and in a conspicuous part of its columns that the House of Lords had that day imposed so many thousand pounds of taxation on the English people contrary to the fundamental principles of the Constitution. It divided the whole amount of the reimposed duty by the number of days in the year and thus arrived at the exact sum which it declared to have been each day unconstitutionally imposed on the country. This device was copied by the promoters of public meetings and Monsieur Ten, the French author then in this country, was amused to see placards borne about in the streets with this portentous announcement. Mr. Bright threw his eloquence and his influence into the agitation and Mr. Gladstone expressed himself strongly in favor of its object. Yet the country did not become greatly excited over the controversy. It did not even enter warmly into the question as to the necessity of abolishing the House of Lords. One indignant writer insisted that if the Lords did not give way, the English people would turn them out of Westminster Palace and strew the Thames with the wrecks of their painted chamber. Language such as this sounded oddly out of tune with the temper of the time. The general conviction of the country was undoubtedly that the Lords were in the wrong, that whatever their technical right, if they had any, they had made a mistake and that it would certainly be necessary to check them if they attempted to repeat it. But the feeling also was that there was not the slightest chance of such a mistake being repeated. The mere fact that so much stir had been made about it was enough to secure the country against any chance of its passing into a precedent. In truth, the country could not be induced to feel any fear of persistent unconstitutional action on the part of the House of Lords. That house is known by everyone to hold most of its technical rights on condition of its rarely exercising them. When once its action in any particular case has been seriously called into question, it may be taken for granted that that action will not be repeated. Its principal function in the state now is to interpose at some moment of emergency and give the House of Commons time to think over some action which seems inconsiderate. This is a very important and may be a very useful office. At first sight, it may appear a little paradoxical to compare the functions of the English House of Lords in any way with those of the Chief Magistrate of the United States. And yet the delaying power which the President possesses is almost exactly the same as that which our usages even more than our Constitution have put at the discretion of the House of Lords. The President can veto a bill in the first instance, but the legislature can afterwards, if they will, pass the measure in spite of him by a certain majority. Practically this means that the President can say no to the legislature. I think this measure has not been very carefully considered. I send it back and invite you to think the matter over again. If when you have done so, you still desire to pass the measure, I can make no further objection. This is all that the House of Lords can now do and only in exceptional cases will the peers venture to do so much. Most people knew in 1860 that the interposition of the House of Lords only meant the delay of a session, and knew too that the controversy which had been raised upon the subject, such as it was, would be quite enough to keep the peers from carrying the thing too far. A course of action which Mr. Gladstone denounced as a gigantic innovation which Lord Palmerston could not approve, which the Liberal Party generally condemned and which the House of Commons made the occasion of a significant warning resolution was not in the least likely to be converted by repetition into an established principle and precedent. This was the reason why the country took the whole matter with comparative indifference. It was not in the least influenced by the servile arguments with which conservatives and a few feeble Liberals employed to make out a constitutional case for the House of Lords. One orator, Mr. Hausmann, carried his objection to democracy so far as to undertake an elaborate argument to prove that the House of Lords had a taxing power coordinate with that of the House of Commons. It may be imagined to what a depth party feeling had brought some men down when it is stated that this nonsense was applauded by the conservatives in the House of Commons. Luckily for the privileges of the House of Lords, no serious attention was paid to Mr. Hausmann's argument. If that indiscreet champion of the authority of the Lords could have made out his case, if he could have shown that the peers really had a taxing power coordinate with that of the Commons, there would have been nothing for it, but to make new arrangements and withdraw from the hereditary assembly so inappropriate a privilege. For it may be surely taken for granted that the people of this country would never endure the idea of being taxed by a legislative body over whose members they had no manner of control. The whole controversy has little political importance now. Perhaps it is most interesting for the evidence it gave that Mr. Gladstone was every day drifting more and more away from the opinions, not merely of his old conservative associates, but even of his later Whig colleagues. The position which he took up in this dispute was entirely different from that of Lord Palmerston. He condemned without reserve or mitigation the conduct of the Lords, and he condemned it on the very grounds which made his words most welcome to the radicals. He did not indeed give his support to the course of extreme self-assertion, which some radical members recommended to the House of Commons, but he made it clear that he only disclaimed such measures because he felt convinced that the House of Lords would soon come to its senses again and would refrain from similar acts of unconstitutional interference in the future. The first decided adhesion of Mr. Gladstone to the doctrines of the more advanced liberals is generally regarded as having taken place at a somewhat later period and in relation to a different question. It would seem, however, that the first decisive intimation of the course Mr. Gladstone was thenceforth to tread was his declaration that the constitutional privileges of the representative assembly would not be safe in the hands of the conservative opposition. Mr. Gladstone was distinctly regarded during that debate as the advocate of a policy far more energetic than any professed by Lord Palmerston. The promoters of the meetings which had been held to protest against the interference of the Lords found full warrant for the course they had taken in Mr. Gladstone's stern protest against the gigantic innovation. Lord Palmerston, on the other hand, certainly suffered some damage in the eyes of the extreme liberals. It became more clear than ever to them that he had no sympathy with any radical movement here at home. However, he might sympathize with every radical movement on the continent. Still, Lord Palmerston's resolutions contained in them quite enough to prove to the Lords that they had gone a little too far and that they must not attempt anything of the kind again. A story used to be told of Lord Palmerston at that time which would not have been out of character if it had been true. Someone, it was said, pressed him to say what he intended to do about the Lords and the reimposition of the paper duties. What I mean to tell them was the alleged reply of Lord Palmerston that it was a very good joke for once, but they must not give it to us again. This was really the effect of Palmerston's resolutions. All very well for once, but don't try it again. The Lords took the hint. They did not try it again. Even in that year, 1860, Mr. Gladstone was able to carry his resolution while removing, in accordance with the provisions of the French Treaty, so much of the Customs Duty on imported paper as exceeded the excise duty on paper made here at home. Meanwhile the Government has disdained a severe humiliation in another way. They had had to abandon their reform bill. The bill was a moderate and simple scheme of reform. It proposed to lower the county franchise to 10 pounds and out of the boroughs to six pounds and to make a considerable redistribution of seats. 25 boroughs returning two members each were to return but one for the future and the representation of several large counties and divisions of counties was to be strengthened. Kensington and Chelsea were to form a borough with two members. Birkenhead, Stollybridge and Burnley were to have one member each. Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham were each to have an additional member. The University of London was to have a member. It was also proposed that where there were three members to a constituency, the third should represent the minority and end to be accomplished by the simple process of allowing each elector to vote for only two of the three. The bill was brought in on March 1st. The second reading was moved on March 19th. Mr. Disraeli condemned the measure then, although he did not propose to offer any opposition to it at that stage. He made a long and labored speech in which he talked of the bill as a measure of a medieval character without the inspiration of the feudal system or the genius of the Middle Ages. No one knew exactly what this meant but it was loudly applauded by Mr. Disraeli's followers and was thought rather fine by some of those who sat on the ministerial side. Mr. Disraeli also condemned it for being too homogeneous in its character by which he was understood to mean that he considered there was too great a monotony or uniformity in the suffrage it proposed to introduce. Long nights of debate more or less languid followed. Mr. Disraeli with his usual sagacity was merely waiting to see how things would go before he committed himself or his party to any decided opposition. He began very soon to see that there was no occasion for him to take any great trouble in the matter. He and his friends had little more to do than look on and smile complacently while the chances of the bill were being hopelessly undermined by some of the followers of the government. The milder wigs hated the scheme rather more than the Tories did. It was Lord John Russell's scheme. Russell was faithful to the cause of reform and he was backed up by the support of Cobden, Bright and the Manchester and Radical Party in general. But the bill found little favor in the cabinet itself. It was accepted principally as a means of soothing the radicals and appeasing Lord John Russell. Lord Palmerston was well known to be personally indifferent to its fate. There was good reason to believe that if left to himself he would never have introduced such a measure or any measure having the same object. Lord Palmerston was not so foreseeing as Mr. Disraeli. The leader of the opposition knew well enough even then that a reform bill of some kind would have to be brought in before long. There's not the least reason to suppose that he ever for a moment fell into Lord Palmerston's mistake and fancied that the opinions of the clubs, of the respectable wigs and of the metropolitan shopkeepers represented the opinions of the English people. Mr. Disraeli probably foresaw even then that it might be convenient to his own party one day to seek for the credit of carrying a radical reform bill. He therefore took care not to express any disapproval of the principles of reform in the debates that took place on the second reading of Lord John Russell's bill. His manner was that of one who looks on scornfully at a bungling attempt to do some piece of work which he could do much better if he had a chance of making the attempt. Call that a reform bill, he seemed to say. That piece of homogeneousness and medievalism which has neither the genius of feudalism nor the spirit of the Middle Ages only give me a chance someday of trying my hand again and then you shall see the genius of the Middle Ages and the later ages and feudalism and all the rest of it combined to perfection. Meanwhile the bill was drifting and floundering onto destruction. If Lord Palmerston had spoken one determined word in its favor it could have been easily carried. The conservatives would not have taken on themselves the responsibility of a prolonged resistance. Those of the liberals who secretly detested the measure would not have had the courage to stand up against Lord Palmerston. Their real objection to the proposer of form was that it would have put them to the trouble of a new election and that they did not like the extreme radicals and the Manchester School. But they would have swallowed their objections if they had supposed that Lord Palmerston was determined to pass the bill. Very soon they came to understand or at least to believe that Lord Palmerston would be rather pleased than otherwise to see the measure brought into contempt. Lord Palmerston took practically no part in the debates. He did actually make a speech at a late period but as Mr. Disraeli said with admirable effect it was a speech not so much in support of as about the reform bill. Sir George Lewis argued for the bill so coldly and sadly that Sir E.B. Lytton brought down the laughter and cheers of both sides of the house when he described Lewis as having come to bury Caesar not to praise him. The measure was already doomed. It was virtually dead and buried. Notice was given of amendment after amendment chiefly or altogether by professing liberals. The practice of obstructing the progress of the bill by incessant speech making was introduced and made to work with ominous effect. Some of the more boisterous of the Tories began to treat the whole thing as a good piece of fun. Once an attempt was made to get the house counted out during the progress of the debate. It would be a capital means of reducing the whole discussion to an absurdity, some members thought, if the house could actually be counted out during a debate on the reform bill. A bill to remold the whole political constitution of the country and the House of Commons not caring enough about the subject to contribute 40 listeners or even 40 patient watchers within the precincts of Westminster Palace. When the attempt to count did not succeed in the ordinary way, it occurred to the genius of some of the conservatives that the object might be accomplished by a little gentle and not unacceptable violence. A number of stout squires therefore got round the door in the lobby and endeavored by sheer physical obstruction to prevent zealous members from re-entering the house. It will be easily understood what the temper of the majority was when horseplay of this kind could even be attempted. At length it was evident that the bill could not pass, that the talk which was in preparation must smother it. The moment the bill got into committee there would be amendments on every line of it and every member could speak as often as he pleased. The session was passing, the financial measures could not be postponed or put aside, the opponents of the reform bill open and secret had the government at their mercy. On Monday, June 11th, Lord John Russell announced that the government had made up their minds to withdraw the bill. There was no alternative. Lord Palmerston had rendered to the bill exactly that sort of service which Campbell rendered to the play of Vortigern and Rowena. Campbell laid a peculiar emphasis on the words, and when this solemn mockery is o'er and glanced at the pit in such a manner as to express only too clearly the contempt he had for the part which he was coerced to play, and the pit turned the piece into ridicule and would have no more of it. If Campbell had approved of the play they might have put up with it for his sake, but when he gave them leave they simply made sport of it. Lord Palmerston conveyed to his pit his private idea on the subject of the reform bill which he had officially to recommend and the pit took the hint and there was an end to the bill. Lord Palmerston became more unpopular than ever with the advanced liberals. He had yielded so far to public alarm as to propose a vote of two millions, the first installment of a sum of nine millions to be laid out in fortifying our coast against the emperor of the French. He was accused of gross inconsistency. The statesman who went out of his way to give premature recognition to Louis Napoleon after the coup d'etat. The statesman of the conspiracy bill was now clamoring for the means to resist a treacherous invasion from his favorite ally. Yet Lord Palmerston was not inconsistent. He had now brought himself seriously to believe that Louis Napoleon meditated evil to England and with Palmerston, right or wrong, England was the one supreme consideration. To us it seems to have been wrong when he patronized Louis Napoleon and wrong when he wasted money in measures of superfluous protection against Louis Napoleon, but we do not think the latter Palmerston was inconsistent with the former. Thenceforward it was understood that Lord Palmerston would have no more of reform. This was accepted as a political condition by most of Lord Palmerston's colleagues. Even Lord John Russell accepted the condition and bowed to his leaders' determination. As George III's ministers came to bend to his scruples with regard to Catholic emancipation, there was to be no reform bill while Lord Palmerston lived. End of section 25.