Part 65

"On January 14, 1858, an attempt was made to assassinate Napoleon III. by a gang of desperadoes, headed by Orsini, whose head-quarters had previously been in London. Not without some reason it was felt in France that such men ought not to be able to find shelter in this country, and the French Minister was ordered to make representations to that effect. Lord Palmerston, always anxious to cultivate the good feeling of the French nation, desired to pass a measure which should give to the British Government the power to banish from England any foreigner conspiring in Britain against the life of a foreign sovereign. ... An unfortunate outburst of vituperation against England in the French press, and the repetition of such language by officers of the French army who were received by the Emperor when they waited on him as a deputation, aroused very angry English feeling. Lord Palmerston had already introduced the Bill he desired to pass, and it had been read the first time by a majority of 200. But the foolish action of the French papers changed entirely the current of popular opinion. Lord Derby saw his advantage. An amendment to the second reading, which was practically a vote of censure, was carried against Lord Palmerston, and to his own surprise no less than to that of the country, he was obliged to resign. Lord Derby succeeded to Palmerston's vacant office. ... Lord Derby's second Ministry was wrecked upon the fatal rock of Reform early in 1859, and at once appealed to the country. ... The election of 1859 failed to give the Conservatives a majority, and soon after the opening of the session they were defeated upon a vote of want of confidence moved by Lord Hartington. Earl Granville was commissioned by the Queen to form a Ministry, because her Majesty felt that 'to make so marked a distinction as is implied in the choice of one or other as Prime Minister of two statesmen so full of years and honour as Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell would be a very invidious and unwelcome task.' Each of these veterans was willing to serve under the other, but neither would follow the lead of a third. And so Granville failed, and to Palmerston was entrusted the task. He succeeded in forming what was considered the strongest Ministry of modern times, so far as the individual ability of its members was concerned. Russell went to the Foreign Office and Gladstone to the Exchequer."

_Marquis of Lorne, Viscount Palmerston, chapters 10-11._

ALSO IN: _T. Martin, Life of the Prince Consort, chapters 82-84, 91-92, and 94 (volume 4)._

_T. E. Kebbel, Life of the Earl of Derby, chapter 7._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1860. The Cobden-Chevalier commercial treaty with France.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (FRANCE): A. D. 1853-1860.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1861 (May). The Queen's Proclamation of Neutrality with reference to the American Civil War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL-MAY).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1861 (October). The allied intervention in Mexico.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1861 (November). The Trent Affair. Seizure of Mason and Slidell.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (NOVEMBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1861-1865. The Cotton Famine.

"Upon a population, containing half a million of cotton operatives, in a career of rapid prosperity, the profits of 1860 reaching in some instances from 30 to 40 per cent upon the capital engaged; and with wages also at the highest point which they had ever touched, came the news of the American war, with the probable stoppage of 85 per cent of the raw material of their manufacture. A few wise heads hung despondently down, or shook with fear for the fate of 'the freest nation under heaven,' but the great mass of traders refused to credit a report which neither suited their opinions nor their interests. ... There was a four months' supply held on this side the water at Christmas (1860), and there had been three months' imports at the usual rate since that time, and there would be the usual twelve months' supply from other sources; and by the time this was consumed, and the five months' stock of goods held by merchants sold, all would be right again. That this was the current opinion was proved by the most delicate of all barometers, the scale of prices; for during the greater part of the year 1861 the market was dull, and prices scarcely moved upwards. But towards the end of the year the aspect of affairs began to change. ... The Federals had declared a blockade of the Southern ports, and, although as yet it was pretty much a 'paper blockade,' yet the newly established Confederate government was doing its best to render it effective. They believed that cotton was king in England, and that the old country could not do without it, and would be forced, in order to secure its release, to side with those who kept it prisoner. Mills began to run short time or to close in the month of October, but no noise was made about it; and the only evidence of anything unusual was at the boards of guardians, where the applications had reached the mid-winter height three months earlier than usual. The poor-law guardians in the various unions were aware that the increase was not of the usual character--it was too early for out-door labourers to present themselves; still the difference was not of serious amount, being only about 3,000 in the whole twenty-eight unions. In November, 7,000 more presented themselves, and in December the increase was again 7,000; so that the recipients of relief were at this time 12,000 (or about 25 per cent) more than in the January previous. And now serious thoughts began to agitate many minds; cotton was very largely held by speculators for a rise, the arrivals were meagre in quantity, and the rates of insurance began to show that, notwithstanding the large profits on imports, the blockade was no longer on paper alone. January, 1862, added 16,000 more to the recipients of relief, who were now 70 per cent above the usual number for the same period of the year. But from the facts as afterwards revealed, the statistics of boards of guardians were evidently no real measure of the distress prevailing. ... The month of February usually lessens the dependents on the poor-rates, for out-door labour begins again as soon as the signs of spring appear; but in 1862 it added nearly 9,000 to the already large number of extra cases, the recipients being now 105 per cent above the average for the same period of the year. {967} But this average gives no idea of the pressure in particular localities. ... The cotton operatives were now, if left to themselves, like a ship's crew upon short provisions, and those very unequally distributed, and without chart or compass, and no prospect of getting to land. In Ashton there were 3,197; in Stockport, 8,588; and in Preston, 9,488 persons absolutely foodless; and who nevertheless declined to go to the guardians. To have forced the high-minded heads of these families to hang about the work-house lobbies in company with the idle, the improvident, the dirty, the diseased, and the vicious, would have been to break their heaving hearts, and to hurl them headlong into despair. Happily there is spirit enough in this country to appreciate nobility, even when dressed in fustian, and pride and sympathy enough to spare even the poorest from unnecessary humiliation; and organisations spring up for any important work so soon as the necessity of the case becomes urgent in any locality. Committees arose almost simultaneously in Ashton, Stockport, and Preston; and in April, Blackburn followed in the train, and the guardians and the relief committees of these several places divided an extra 6,000 dependents between them. The month of May, which usually reduces pauperism to almost its lowest ebb, added 6,000 more to the recipients from the guardians, and 5,000 to the dependents on the relief committees, which were now six in number, Oldham and Prestwich (a part of Manchester) being added to the list. ... The month of June sent 6,000 more applicants to sue for bread to the boards of guardians, and 5,000 additional to the six relief committees; and these six committees had now as many dependents as the whole of the boards of guardians in the twenty-eight unions supported in ordinary years. ... In the month of July, when all unemployed operatives would ordinarily be lending a hand in the hay harvest, and picking up the means of living whilst improving in health and enjoying the glories of a summer in the country, the distress increased like a flood, 13,000 additional applicants being forced to appeal for poor-law relief; whilst 11,000 others were adopted by the seven relief committees. ... In August the flood had become a deluge, at which the stoutest heart might stand appalled. The increased recipients of poor-law relief were in a single month, 33,000, being nearly as many as the total number chargeable in the same month of the previous year, whilst a further addition of more than 34,000 became chargeable to the relief committees. ... Most of the cotton on hand at this period was of Indian growth, and needed alterations of machinery to make it workable at all, and in good times an employer might as well shut up his mill as try to get it spun or manufactured. But oh! how glad would the tens of thousands of unwilling idlers have been now, to have had a chance even of working at Surats, although they knew that it required much harder work for one-third less than normal wages. ... Another month is past, and October has added to the number under the guardians no less than 55,000, and to the charge of the relief committees 39,000 more. ... And now dread winter approaches, and the authorities have to deal not only with hundreds of thousands who are compulsorily idle, and consequently foodless, but who are wholly unprepared for the inclemencies of the season; who have no means of procuring needful clothing, nor even of making a show of cheerfulness upon the hearth by means of the fire, which is almost as useful as food. ... The total number of persons chargeable at the end of November, 1862, was, under boards of guardians, 258,357, and on relief committees, 200,084; total 458,441. ... There were not wanting men who saw, or thought they saw, a short way out of the difficulty, viz., by a recognition on the part of the English government of the Southern confederacy in America. And meetings were called in various places to memorialise the government to this effect. Such meetings were always balanced by counter meetings, at which it was shown that simple recognition would be waste of words; that it would not bring to our shores a single shipload of cotton, unless followed up by an armed force to break the blockade, which course if adopted would be war; war in favour of the slave confederacy of the South, and against the free North and North-west, whence comes a large proportion of our imported corn. In addition to the folly of interfering in the affairs of a nation 3,000 miles away, the cotton, if we succeeded in getting it, would be stained with blood and cursed with the support of slavery, and would also prevent our getting the food which we needed from the North equally as much as the cotton from the South. ... These meetings and counter meetings perhaps helped to steady the action of the government (notwithstanding the sympathy of some of its members towards the South), to confirm them in the policy of the royal proclamation, and to determine them to enforce the provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act against all offenders. ... The maximum pressure upon the relief committees was reached early in December, 1862, but, as the tide had turned before the end of the month, the highest number chargeable at any one time is nowhere shown. The highest number exhibited in the returns is for the last week in the year 1862, viz.: 485,434 persons; but in the previous weeks of the same month some thousands more were relieved."

_J. Watts, The Facts of the Cotton Famine, chapters 8 and 12._

ALSO IN: _R. A. Arnold, History of the Cotton Famine._

_E. Waugh, Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1862 (JULY). The fitting out of the Confederate cruiser Alabama at Liverpool.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1862-1864.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1865. Governor Eyre and the Jamaica Insurrection.

See JAMAICA: A. D. 1865.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1868. Death of Palmerston. Ministry of Lord John Russell. Its unsatisfactory Reform Bill and its resignation. Triumph of the Adullamites. Third administration of Derby and Disraeli, and its Reform Bills.

"On the death of Lord Palmerston [which occurred October 18, 1865], the premiership was intrusted for the second time to Earl Russell, with Mr. Gladstone as leader in the House of Commons. The queen opened her seventh parliament (February 6, 1866), in person, for the first time since the prince consort's death. On March 12th Mr. Gladstone brought forward his scheme of reform, proposing to extend the franchise in counties and boroughs, but the opposition of the moderate Liberals, and their joining the Conservatives, proved fatal to the measure, and in consequence the ministry of Earl Russell resigned. {968} The government had been personally weakened by the successive deaths of Mr. Sidney Herbert, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, the Duke of Newcastle, Earl of Elgin, and Lord Palmerston. The queen sent for the Earl of Derby to form a Cabinet, who, although the Conservative party was in the minority in the House of Commons, accepted the responsibility of undertaking the management of the government: he as Premier and First Lord of the Treasury; Mr. Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer."

_A. H. McCalman, Abridged History of England, page 603._

"The measure, in fact, was too evidently a compromise. The Russell and Gladstone section of the Cabinet wanted reform: the remnants of Palmerston's followers still thought it unnecessary. The result was this wretched, tinkering measure, which satisfied nobody, and disappointed the expectation of all earnest Reformers. ... The principal opposition came not from the Conservatives, as might have been expected, but from Mr. Horsman and Mr. Robert Lowe, both members of the Liberal party, who from the very first declared they would have none of it. ... Mr. Bright denounced them furiously as 'Adullamites'; all who were in distress, all who were discontented, had gathered themselves together in the political cave of Adullam for the attack on the Government. But Mr. Lowe, all unabashed by denunciation or sarcasm, carried the war straight into the enemy's camp in a swift succession of speeches of extraordinary brilliance and power. ... The party of two, which in its origin reminded Mr. Bright of 'the Scotch terrier which was so covered with hair that you could not tell which was the head and which was the tail of it,' was gradually reinforced by deserters from the ranks of the Government until at last the Adullamites were strong enough to turn the scale of a division. Then one wild night, after a hot and furious debate, the combined armies of the Adullamites and Conservatives carried triumphantly an amendment brought forward by one of the Adullamite chiefs, Lord Dunkellin, to the effect that a rating be substituted for a rental qualification; and the Government was at an end. ... The failure of the bill brought Lord Russell's official career to its close. He formally handed over the leadership of the party to Mr. Gladstone, and from this time took but little part in politics. Lord Derby, his opponent, was soon to follow his example, and then the long-standing duel between Gladstone and Disraeli would be pushed up to the very front of the parliamentary stage, right in the full glare of the footlights. Meanwhile, however, Lord Derby had taken office [July 9, 1866]. Disraeli and Gladstone were changing weapons and crossing the stage. ... The exasperated Liberals, however, were rousing a widespread agitation throughout the country in favour of Reform: monster meetings were held in Hyde Park; the Park railings were pulled down and trampled on by an excited mob, and the police regulations proved as unable to bear the unusual strain as police regulations usually do on such occasions. The result was that Mr. Disraeli became convinced that a Reform Bill of some kind or other was inevitable, and Mr. Disraeli's opinion naturally carried the day. The Government, however, did not go straight to the point at once. They began by proposing a number of resolutions on the subject, which were very soon laughed out of existence. Then they brought a bill founded on them, which, however, was very shortly afterwards withdrawn after a very discouraging reception. Finally, the Ministry, lightened by the loss of three of its members--the Earl of Carnarvon, Viscount Cranborne, and General Peel--announced their intention of bringing in a comprehensive measure. The measure in question proposed household suffrage in the boroughs subject to the payment of rates, and occupation franchise for the counties subject to the same limitation, and a variety of fanciful clauses, which would have admitted members of the liberal professions, graduates of the universities, and a number of other classes to the franchise. The most novel feature was a clause which permitted a man to acquire two votes if he possessed a double qualification by rating and by profession. The great objection to the bill was that it excluded the compound householder.' The compound householder is now as extinct an animal as the potwalloper found in earlier parliamentary strata, but he was the hero of the Reform debates of 1867, and as such deserves more than a passing reference. He was, in fact, an occupier of a small house who did not pay his rates directly and in person, but paid them through his landlord. Now the occupiers of these very small houses were naturally by far the most numerous class of occupiers in the boroughs, and the omission of them implied a large exclusion from the franchise. The Liberal party, therefore, rose in defence of the compound householder, and the struggle became fierce and hot. It must be remembered, however, that neither Mr. Gladstone nor Mr. Bright wished to lower the franchise beyond a certain point, and a meeting was held in consequence, in which it was agreed that the programme brought forward in committee should begin by an alteration of the rating laws, so that the compound householder above a certain level should pay his own rates and be given a vote, and that all occupiers below the level should be excluded from the rates and the franchise alike. On what may be described roughly as 'the great drawing-the-line question,' however, the Liberal party once more split up. The advanced section were determined that all occupiers should be admitted, and they would have no 'drawing the line.' Some fifty or sixty of them held a meeting in the tea-room of the House of Commons and decided on this course of action: in consequence they acquired the name of the 'Tea-Room Party.' The communication of their views to Mr. Gladstone made him excessively indignant. He denounced them in violent language, and his passion was emulated by Mr. Bright. ... Mr. Gladstone had to give in, and his surrender was followed by that of Mr. Disraeli. The Tea-Room Party, in fact, were masters of the day, and were able to bring sufficient pressure to bear on the Government to induce them to admit the principle of household suffrage pure and simple, and to abolish all distinctions of rating. ... Not only was the household suffrage clause considerably extended, the dual vote abolished, and most of the fancy franchises swept away, but there were numerous additions which completely altered the character of the bill, and transformed it from a balanced attempt to enlarge the franchise without shifting the balance of power to a sweeping measure of reform."

_B. C. Skottowe, Short History of Parliament, chapter 22._

{969}

The Reform Bill for England "was followed in 1868 by measures for Scotland and Ireland. By these Acts the county franchise in England was extended to all occupiers of lands or houses of the yearly value of £12, and in Scotland to all £5 property owners and £14 property occupiers; while that in Ireland was not altered. The borough franchise in England and Scotland was given to all ratepaying householders and to lodgers occupying lodgings of the annual value of £10; and in Ireland to all ratepaying £4 occupiers. Thus the House of Commons was made nearly representative of all taxpaying commoners, except agricultural labourers and women."

_D. W. Rannie, Historical Outline of the English Constitution, chapter 12, section 4._

ALSO IN: _W. BAGEHOT, Essays on Parliamentary Reform, 3._

_G. B. Smith, Life of Gladstone, chapters 17-18 (volume 2)._

_W. Robertson, Life and Times of John Bright, chapters 39-40._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1869. Discussion of the Alabama Claims of the United States. The Johnson-Clarendon Treaty and its rejection.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1862-1869.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1867-1868. Expedition to Abyssinia.

See ABYSSINIA: A. D. 1854-1889.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870. Disestablishment of the Irish Church. Retirement of the Derby-Disraeli Ministry. Mr. Gladstone in power. His Irish Land Bill.