Part 5

When a tremendous House expressed in various ways its approbation of the Budget a fortnight ago, few, if any, persons imagined that an equally great House would assemble to behold Mr. Gladstone go through the humiliating operation of eating a financial leek. Everybody knows the story of the tax on charities, which created such a monster opposition that a Chancellor of the Exchequer could not get into his own room to meet a deputation, because it was so blocked up with Royal Dukes, Archbishops, Peers, M.P.’s, and vested interests personified in every shape. Most people knew on Monday last that this part of the Budget had been “mobbed” out of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s hands; and no one could have been surprised at the deadly pallor of his cheek, the sternness of his brow, his ghastly attempts at smiles, and his palpable efforts to appear cool and unconcerned. When Lord Palmerston came in he sat himself next to Mr. Gladstone and entered into earnest but apparently airy conversation with him; and one could not help fancying that in his humorous way the Prime Minister was asking whether Mr. Gladstone really objected to the flavour of leeks, and assuring him that when he became as accustomed to them as he, the Premier was, from eating them two or three times a week this Session, their pungency and disagreeable flavour would be found more fanciful than real.... At length the eventful moment came, and Mr. Gladstone, with the light of battle in his eye, as Mr. Kinglake would say, rose, and with unnatural calmness proceeded to deliver, all things considered, one of the greatest speeches that were ever uttered in Parliament. Conceive a Chancellor of the Exchequer honestly impressed with the belief that he had lighted on an accumulation of abuse ... and erroneously, as we think, supposing that he was striking at the abuse by taxing it, stopped short by an impassable barrier of public opinion, and having to come down to the House to give up the most darling part of his financial scheme, and oh, worst of all, with it just half of that surplus which he had announced his determination to defend against all comers. He did not part with it, however, without such a crushing denunciation of the abuse as will prove to be its knell; and as for ingenuity in illustration and power of language in holding up to scorn and derision the subject-matter of that denunciation, none but himself could have been his parallel. As to giving up his scheme, he did nothing of the kind; he hurled it at his opponents with the fierceness and scathing force of a thunderbolt....

... Later on in the debate Mr. Gladstone, in a low voice, and with a resigned expression of countenance, announced the withdrawal of his proposition. Mr. Disraeli, who has long ceased to contend on financial matters with Mr. Gladstone, and who had been, as usual, quiescent and nearly motionless all the evening, merely paying Sir Stafford Northcote the high compliment of turning slightly towards him when he was speaking, instantly rose with the leap of a tiger, and every one expected a burst of the old philippic style which made him what he is. But nothing of the sort came.

The first sentence was well enough, but the rest was all the first sentence over again, and diluted and weakened by repetition; and perhaps the only real consolation Mr. Gladstone received that night was from the poverty of that attempt at giving a kick when he was down.

DISTRESS IN THE COTTON MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS (1863).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1863; _English History_, pp. 140, 141.

The maximum pressure of the distress occasioned by the stoppage, partial or total, of the cotton mills of Lancashire and Cheshire had been attained a short time prior to Christmas, 1862. In the month of December the number of persons receiving regular relief was supposed to be little short of 500,000. The weekly loss of wages at the same time was estimated at about £168,000. In the last two or three weeks of the year a partial improvement took place, and in January, 1863, according to the statement officially made to the Manchester Relief Committee, the number of persons receiving aid from the rates and from the contributions of the public together was 456,786. From this time a progressive decrease took place, the numbers relieved during the five months following being as follows:

In February 440,529 ” March 426,411 ” April 364,419 ” May 294,281 ” June 256,230

It thus appears that the number of persons dependent on parochial rates and on voluntary contributions became reduced at the end of the first half of 1863, as compared with the maximum amount in December, 1862, by almost one-half. This favourable result was due partly to the resumption of work in some of the factories, owing to an increased supply of the raw material, and partly to the absorption which had taken place to some extent of the surplus hands in other employments, and to the removal and emigration of some part of the population. This decrease in the number of unemployed operatives continued with little variation during the summer. In July the number relieved had fallen to 214,155; in August to 205,261; and in September to 184,625. The list of persons relieved at that time exhibited a steady decrease of 1,500 per week. In that month it was computed that out of the 530,000 operatives of all ages whose industry depended upon cotton, there were 362,000 in employ, of whom nearly 250,000 were at full work, and 120,251 working short time, while 171,535 were entirely out of employ. It was apprehended that, as winter approached, a reaction would take place, and that the relief lists would again begin to show a serious augmentation. But this expectation was only to a small extent realised. The number relieved in the month of October was 168,170. In November it increased in a trifling degree, being 170,859; and in December it showed an addition of about 10,000, the total being 180,900. Still, upon a comparison of the number of persons in receipt of relief in the first and last months of the year respectively, the improvement was very marked, the last week of December, as compared with January, showing the very large decrease of 275,877. The average percentage of pauperism on the population of twenty-seven unions in the last week of December, 1863, was 6·8; whereas in the corresponding week of 1862 it had been 13·2. It was further shown by a report of the Special Commissioners of the Poor Law Board on the 4th of January, 1864, that at that date, as compared with the last week in March, 1863, a reduction had taken place of 33,963 in the actual number of operatives in the cotton districts, the surplus having been transferred to other fields of employment--viz., 18,244 having emigrated to the Colonies or to the United States, and 15,725 having found other occupations within the districts.

BRITAIN AND THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA (1863).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1863, pp. 128, 129.

MR. ROEBUCK’S SPEECH ON MOTION IN FAVOUR OF RECOGNISING THE SOUTHERN STATES AS A GOVERNMENT.

_June._--Mr. Roebuck repudiated with scorn the argument that the cause of the North was the cause of the slave. We are met by the assertion: “Oh, England cannot acknowledge a State in which slavery exists.” Indeed, I ask, is that really the case, and is any man so weak as to believe it? Have we not acknowledged Brazil? Are we not in constant communication with Russia? And is there not slavery in both those countries? Moreover, does anybody believe that the black slave would be at all improved in his condition by being placed in the same position as the free black in the North? I ask whether the North, hating slavery, if you will, does not hate the slave still more? (“No, no!”) I pity the ignorance of the gentleman who says “No.” The blacks are not permitted to take an equal station in the North. They are not permitted to enter the same carriage, to pray to God in the same part of the church, or to sit down at the same table as the whites. They are like the hunted dog whom everybody may kick. But in the South the feeling is very different. There black children and white children are brought up together. In the South there is not that hatred, that contempt, of the black man which exists in the North. There is a kindly feeling in the minds of the Southern planters towards those whom England fixed there in a position of servitude. England forced slavery upon the Southern States of America. It was not their doing. They prayed and entreated England not to establish slavery in their dominions, but we did it because it suited our interests, and the gentlemen who now talk philanthropy talked the other way. Every man who has studied the question will distinctly understand the difference between the feeling of the Northern gentleman and that of the Southern planter towards the black. There is a sort of horror--a sort of shivering in the Northerner when he comes across a black. He feels as if he were contaminated by the very fact of a black man being on an equality with him. That is not the case in the South. I am not now speaking in favour of slavery. Slavery is to me as distasteful as it is to anyone; but I have learnt to bear with other men’s infirmities, and I do not think every man a rogue or a fool who differs from me in opinion. But though I hate slavery I cannot help seeing the great distinction between the condition of the black in the North and his condition in the South. I believe that if to-morrow you could make all the blacks in the South like the free negroes in the North, you would do them a great injury. The cry of the North in favour of the black is a hypocritical cry, and to-morrow the North would join with the South, and fasten slavery on the necks of the blacks, if the South would only re-enter the Union. But the South will never come into the Union, and, what is more, I hope it never may. I will tell you why I say so. America, while she was one, ran a race of prosperity unparalleled in the world. In eighty years, not America, but Europe, made the Republic such a Power that, if she had continued as she was a few years ago, she would have been the great bully of the world. Why, sir, she--

“... bestrode the narrow world, Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walked under her huge legs, and peeped about To find ourselves dishonourable graves.”

As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can to prevent the reconstruction of the Union, and I hope that the balance of power on the American Continent will in future prevent any one State from tyrannising over the world as the Republic did.

[For opposing view see next extract.]

OPPOSITION TO MR. ROEBUCK’S MOTION (1863).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1863; _English History_, pp. 130, 131.

Mr. Bright animadverted severely upon the speech of Mr. Roebuck....

Mr. Roebuck, he said, would help to break up a friendly nation, and create an everlasting breach between the two nations, because he deemed it for the interest of England. The whole case rested upon either a miserable jealousy or a base fear. He looked upon the interest of England from a different point of view. He believed the war was more likely than anything else to abolish slavery. The supply of cotton under slavery must always be insecure. It was the interest of England that the supply of cotton should be by free labour rather than by that of slaves. As to the political aspect of the question, the more he considered this war, the more improbable he thought it that the United States would be broken into separate Republics. The conclusion to which he had come was that if there should be a separation, the interests, the sympathies and the necessities, perhaps the ambition, of the whole Continent were such that it would be reunited under a Central Government. And this Government might be in the hands of the South. Having dwelt at considerable length upon the hideous features of Southern slavery, and eulogised the Northern institutions, it was against such a Government, he observed, in such a contest with such a foe, that Mr. Roebuck asked the House to throw into the scale the weight of the hostility of England.

A POLICY OF MEDDLE AND MUDDLE (1864).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, vol. 106; _English History_, p. 7.

ATTACK ON EARL RUSSELL’S FOREIGN POLICY BY LORD DERBY (FEBRUARY 4).

He then called the attention of the House to the portion of the Queen’s speech relating to foreign affairs. Her Majesty’s Government had for two or three years past mainly rested their claim to public confidence on their foreign policy. They had abandoned the question of Parliamentary Reform the moment it had served the purpose of putting them in office. The fulfilment of the promises they had made was defeated by Lord Russell, and when he was transferred to the more serene atmosphere of the House of Lords, he pronounced the funeral oration of Reform. He had told them ... “to rest and be thankful,” and from that time their foreign policy had been the groundwork of the claim of Her Majesty’s Government to public confidence. I think, proceeded Lord Derby, that at the commencement the foreign policy of the noble Earl opposite might be summed up in the affirmation of the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, the extension of Liberal principles by the exercise of our moral interference, and, above all, the maintenance of uninterrupted and cordial relations with the Emperor of the French. We were told more than once that the present Government was the only one to maintain a good understanding with the Emperor of the French, or, at least, that its predecessor could not possibly have done so, and that, if the country desired to preserve cordial relations between itself and France, Her Majesty’s present advisers, and especially the noble Earl opposite, were the only persons qualified to secure that most desirable object.

Now, my lords, as to non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, when I look around me I fail to see what country there is, in the internal affairs of which the noble Earl has not interfered.

“_Nihil intactum reliquit, nihil tetigit quod_”--I cannot say, “_non ornavit_,” but “_non conturbavit_.” The foreign policy of the noble Earl, as far as the principle of non-intervention is concerned, may be summed up in two homely but expressive words--“meddle” and “muddle.” During the whole course of his diplomatic correspondence, wherever he has interfered--and he has interfered everywhere--he has been lecturing, scolding, blustering, and retreating. Seriously--for though there may be something ludicrous about it, the matter is of too great importance to be treated only in a light and jocular manner--I cannot but feel as an Englishman that I am lowered and humiliated in my own estimation, and in that of other nations, by the result of the noble Earl’s administration of foreign affairs. Thanks to the noble Earl and the present Government, we have at this moment not one single friend in Europe, and, more than that, this country, the chief fault of which was that it went too direct and straightforward at what it aimed, which never gave a promise without the intention of performing, which never threatened without a full determination of striking, which never made a demand without being prepared to enforce it, this country is now in such a position, that its menaces are disregarded, its magniloquent language is ridiculed, and its remonstrances are treated with contemptuous indifference by the small as well as by the great Powers of the Continent. With regard to the policy of keeping up a good understanding with France, there is hardly a single question in which Her Majesty’s Ministers have not thwarted the policy of the Emperor. From the Mexican expedition it had withdrawn, and it had not supported the Emperor’s policy in relation to the Confederate States of America. It had also declined the Emperor’s proposition of a Congress.

ATTITUDE OF ENGLAND TOWARDS THE AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN ATTACK ON DENMARK (1864).

=Source.=--_Ashley’s Life of Viscount Palmerston_, vol. ii., pp. 249–251. (Richard Bentley and Son.)

LETTER FROM LORD PALMERSTON TO LORD J. RUSSELL.

94, PICCADILLY, _May 1, 1864_.

MY DEAR RUSSELL,

I felt so little satisfied with the decision of the Cabinet on Saturday, that I determined to make a notch off my own bat, and accordingly I wrote this morning to Apponyi, asking him to come here and give me half an hour’s conversation. He came accordingly. I said I wished to have some friendly and unreserved conversation with him, not as between an English Minister, and the Austrian Ambassador, but as between Palmerston and Apponyi, that what I was going to say related to serious matters; but I begged that nothing I might say should be looked upon as a threat, but only as a frank explanation between friends on matters which might lead to disagreements, and with regard to which, unless timely explanation were given as to possible consequences of certain things, a reproach might afterwards be made that timely explanation might have averted disagreeable results. I said that we have from the beginning taken a deep interest in favour of Denmark--not from family ties, which have little influence on English policy, and sometimes act unfavourably--but, first, that we have thought from the beginning that Denmark has been harshly and unjustly treated; and, secondly, we deem the integrity and independence of the State, which commands the entrance to the Baltic, objects of interest to England. That we abstained from taking the field in defence of Denmark for many reasons--from the season of the year; from the smallness of our army, and the great risk of failure in a struggle with all Germany by land. That with regard to operations by sea, the positions would be reversed: we are strong, Germany is weak; and the German ports in the Baltic, North Sea, and Adriatic would be greatly at our command. Speaking for myself personally, and for nobody else, I must frankly tell him that, if an Austrian squadron were to pass along our coasts and ports, and go into the Baltic to help in any way the German operations against Denmark, I should look upon it as an affront and insult to England. That I could not, and would not stand such a thing; and that, unless in such case a superior British squadron were to follow, with such orders for acting as the case might require, I would not continue to hold my present position; and such a case would probably lead to collision--that is, war; and in my opinion Germany, and especially Austria, would be the sufferer in such a war. I should deeply regret such a result, because it is the wish of England to be well with Austria; but I am confident that I should be borne out by public opinion. I again begged that he would not consider this communication as a threat, but simply as a friendly reminder of consequences which might follow a possible course of action.

Apponyi having listened with great attention to what I said, replied that the considerations which I had pointed out were not new to his mind; that they had been forcibly dwelt upon, among other persons, by the King of the Belgians. That he was quite aware that, if the Austrian ships entered the Baltic, an English squadron would follow them; that in all probability one of two things would happen--either that the Austrian squadron would be destroyed, or that it would be compelled by orders from the English Admiral, to leave the Baltic. Thus they would run the risk of a catastrophe or a humiliation, and they did not wish for either. That, therefore, whatever may have been said by Rechberg in his note, we might be sure that the Austrian squadron will not enter the Baltic. This is satisfactory as far as Apponyi may be considered the organ of the Austrian Government; but I think we ought to have something more positive in writing than we have got.

I shall state to the Cabinet to-morrow the substance of my conversation with Apponyi.

Yours sincerely, PALMERSTON.

LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE: SCENE IN IRELAND (1865).

=Source.=--_The Brighton Herald_, July 29, 1865.

The _Great Eastern_ left Valentia on Sunday afternoon on her voyage across the Atlantic.

On the Saturday the operation of laying the shore-end of the cable was successfully performed, though not without considerable risk. Not only had the cable to be landed, but quite a mile in excess was to be hauled on the shore from the _Caroline_, a tender of the _Great Eastern_, to pass up the cliff and across a couple of fields which led to the Telegraph House, and gave communication through the land lines to London. But no sooner was the first end of the cable seen near the shore than a wild “Hooroo” arose from those on land who saw it coming. With a contagion, characteristic of the people, the enthusiasm passed rapidly downwards from those on the cliffs to the groups on the winding path, and thence, like a current of electricity, into the cable-boats themselves, the crews of which joined in the shouting, and seeing the end so near the land, and concluding their work well done, at once proceeded to heave the massive rope into the sea. From boat to boat the first bad example was followed by all until, to the dismay of the cablemen, who could not gain a hearing amid the continued cheers, every fathom up to the stern of the _Caroline_ was thrown overboard.

The result of this touching enthusiasm was that every foot had to be underrun preparatory to the whole operation beginning _de novo_. It took some time to effect this, during which, it is but fair to say, the Irish were silent and dispirited enough, and in reply to the admonitions of the Knight of Kerry, promised to refrain from cheering till at least all was done--a promise which they kept faithfully. When the cable had been underrun, hauled into the boats again, and the shore end really began to come on land and was stowed away in gigantic circles at the foot of the cliff, the scene was one of real animation. Numbers of men were in the water up to their waists or shoulders, easing the cable over the rocks, while along the steep path up the cliffs was a close row of figures, men and boys, of every rank, from the well-to-do farmer down to the poorest cottier, all pulling at the cable with a will, and as if in atonement for their first fault of enthusiasm, obeying with silent and almost childlike docility every signal made by Mr. Glass or Mr. Canning as to when they were to haul or to slack away. Above them and dangerously near the edges of the heights was a fringe of eager lookers-on, while the slopes beyond were dotted with bright groups of the county gentry who had ridden or driven in to see the “landing.” By 12 o’clock the cable was well up the groove, which had been cut in the face of the cliff for its reception, and from this point the work of carrying the massive coils across the meadows to the Receiving House beyond was soon accomplished, and at a little before one o’clock, the end taken over roads, hedges, and ditches was safely housed in the _sanctum sanctorum_--the testing-room. Here the batteries were at once applied and showed both conductivity and insulation to the last fathom in the hold of the _Caroline_ absolutely perfect.