Part 320

"On March 16, 1868, a remarkable debate took place in the House of Commons. It had for its subject the condition of Ireland, and it was introduced by a series of resolutions which Mr. John Francis Maguire, an Irish member, proposed. … It was on the fourth night of the debate that the importance of the occasion became fully manifest. Then it was that Mr. Gladstone spoke, and declared that in his opinion the time had come when the Irish Church as a State institution must cease to exist. Then every man in the House knew that the end was near. Mr. Maguire withdrew his resolutions. The cause he had to serve was now in the hands of one who, though not surely more earnest for its success, had incomparably greater power to serve it. There was probably not a single Englishman capable of forming an opinion who did not know that from the moment when Mr. Gladstone made his declaration, the fall of the Irish State Church had become merely a question of time. Men only waited to see how Mr. Gladstone would proceed to procure its fall. Public expectation was not long kept in suspense. A few days after the debate on Mr. Maguire's motion, Mr. Gladstone gave notice of three resolutions on the subject of the Irish State Church. The first declared that in the opinion of the House of Commons it was necessary that the Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an Establishment, due regard being had to all personal interests and to all individual rights of property. The second resolution pronounced it expedient to prevent the creation of new personal interests by the exercise of any public patronage; and the third asked for an address to the Queen, praying that Her Majesty would place at the disposal of Parliament her interest in the temporalities of the Irish Church. The object of these resolutions was simply to prepare for the actual disestablishment of the Church, by providing that no further appointments should be made, and that the action of patronage should be stayed, until Parliament should decide the fate of the whole institution. On March 30, 1868, Mr. Gladstone proposed his resolutions. Not many persons could have had much doubt as to the result of the debate. But if there were any such, their doubts must have begun to vanish when they read the notice of amendment to the resolutions which was given by Lord Stanley. The amendment proclaimed even more surely than the resolutions the impending fall of the Irish Church. Lord Stanley must have been supposed to speak in the name of the Government and the Conservative party; and his amendment merely declared that the House, while admitting that considerable modifications in the temporalities of the Church in Ireland might appear to be expedient, was of opinion 'that any proposition tending to the disestablishment or disendowment of the Church ought to be reserved for the decision of the new Parliament.' Lord Stanley's amendment asked only for delay. … The debate was one of great power and interest. … When the division was called there were 270 votes for the amendment, and 331 against it. The doom of the Irish Church was pronounced by a majority of 61. An interval was afforded for agitation on both sides. … Mr. Gladstone's first resolution came to a division about a month after the defeat of Lord Stanley's amendment. It was carried by a majority somewhat larger than that which had rejected the amendment—330 votes were given for the resolution; 265 against it. The majority for the resolution was therefore 65. Mr. Disraeli quietly observed that the Government must take some decisive step in consequence of that vote; and a few days afterwards it was announced that as soon as the necessary business could be got through, Parliament would be dissolved and an appeal made to the country. On the last day of July the dissolution took place, and the elections came on in November. Not for many years had there been so important a general election. The keenest anxiety prevailed as to its results. The new constituencies created by the Reform Bill were to give their votes for the first time. The question at issue was not merely the existence of the Irish State Church. It was a general struggle of advanced Liberalism against Toryism. … The new Parliament was to all appearance less marked in its Liberalism than that which had gone before it. But so far as mere numbers went the Liberal party was much stronger than it had been. In the new House of Commons it could count upon a majority of about 120, whereas in the late Parliament it had but 60. Mr. Gladstone it was clear would now have everything in his own hands, and the country might look for a career of energetic reform. … Mr. Disraeli did not meet the new Parliament as Prime Minister. He decided very properly that it would be a mere waste of public time to wait for the formal vote of the House of Commons, which would inevitably command him to surrender. He at once resigned his office, and Mr. Gladstone was immediately sent for by the Queen, and invited to form an Administration. Mr. Gladstone, it would seem, was only beginning his career. He was nearly sixty years of age, but there were scarcely any evidences of advancing years to be seen on his face. … The Government he formed was one of remarkable strength. … Mr. Gladstone went to work at once with his Irish policy. {970} On March 1, 1869, the Prime Minister introduced his measure for the disestablishment and partial disendowment of the Irish State Church. The proposals of the Government were, that the Irish Church should almost at once cease to exist as a State Establishment, and should pass into the condition of a free Episcopal Church. As a matter of course the Irish bishops were to lose their seats in the House of Lords. A synodal, or governing body, was to be elected from the clergy and laity of the Church and was to be recognised by the Government, and duly incorporated. The union between the Churches of England and Ireland was to be dissolved, and the Irish Ecclesiastical Courts were to be abolished. There were various and complicated arrangements for the protection of the life interests of those already holding positions in the Irish Church, and for the appropriation of the fund which would return to the possession of the State when all these interests had been fairly considered and dealt with. … Many amendments were introduced and discussed; and some of these led to a controversy between the two Houses of Parliament; but the controversy ended in compromise. On July 26, 1869, the measure for the disestablishment of the Irish Church received the royal assent. Lord Derby did not long survive the passing of the measure which he had opposed with such fervour and so much pathetic dignity. Be died before the Irish State Church had ceased to live. … When the Irish Church had been disposed of, Mr. Gladstone at once directed his energies to the Irish land system. … In a speech delivered by him during his electioneering campaign in Lancashire, he had declared that the Irish upas-tree had three great branches: the State Church, the Land Tenure System, and the System of Education, and that he meant to hew them all down if he could. On February 15, 1870, Mr. Gladstone introduced his Irish Land Bill into the House of Commons. … It recognised a certain property or partnership of the tenant in the land which he tilled. Mr. Gladstone took the Ulster tenant-right as he found it, and made it a legal institution. In places where the Ulster practice, or something analogous to it, did not exist, he threw upon the landlord the burden of proof as regarded the right of eviction. The tenant disturbed in the possession of his land could claim compensation for improvements, and the bill reversed the existing assumption of the law by presuming all improvements to be the property of the tenant, and leaving it to the landlord, if he could, to prove the contrary. The bill established a special judiciary machinery for carrying out its provisions. … It put an end to the reign of the landlord's absolute power; it reduced the landlord to the level of every other proprietor, of every other man in the country who had anything to sell or hire. … The bill passed without substantial alteration. On August 1, 1870, the bill received the Royal assent. The second branch of the upas-tree had been hewn down. … Mr. Gladstone had dealt with Church and land; he had yet to deal with university education. He had gone with Irish ideas thus far."

_J. McCarthy, Short History of Our Own Times, chapter 23._

ALSO IN: _W. N. Molesworth, History of England, 1830-1874, volume 3, chapter 6._

_Annual Register, 1869, part 1: English History, chapters 2-3, and 1870, chapters 1-2._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1870. The Education Bill.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, ENGLAND: A. D. 1699-1870.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1871. Abolition of Army Purchase and University Religious Tests. Defeat of the Ballot Bill.

"The great measure of the Session [of 1871] was of course the Army Bill, which was introduced by Mr. Cardwell, on the 16th of February. It abolished the system by which rich men obtained by purchase commissions and promotion in the army, and provided £8,000,000 to buy all commissions, as they fell in, at their regulation and over-regulation value [the regulation value being a legal price, fixed by a Royal Warrant, but which in practice was never regarded]. In future, commissions were to be awarded either to those who won them by open competition, or who had served as subalterns in the Militia, or to deserving non-commissioned officers. … The debate, which seemed interminable, ended in an anti-climax that astonished the Tory Opposition. Mr. Disraeli threw over the advocates of Purchase, evidently dreading an appeal to the country. … The Army Regulation Bill thus passed the Second Reading without a division," and finally, with some amendments passed the House. "In the House of Lords the Bill was again obstructed. … Mr. Gladstone met them with a bold stroke. By statute it was enacted that only such terms of Purchase could exist as her Majesty chose to permit by Royal Warrant. The Queen, therefore, acting on Mr. Gladstone's advice, cancelled her warrant permitting Purchase, and thus the opposition of the Peers was crushed by what Mr. Disraeli indignantly termed 'the high-handed though not illegal' exercise of the Royal Prerogative. The rage of the Tory Peers knew no bounds." They "carried a vote of censure on the Government, who ignored it, and then their Lordships passed the Army Regulation Bill without any alterations. … The Session of 1871 was also made memorable by the struggle over the Ballot Bill, in the course of which nearly all the devices of factious obstruction were exhausted. … When the Bill reached the House of Lords, the real motive which dictated the … obstruction of the Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons was quickly revealed. The Lords rejected the Bill on the 18th of August, not merely because they disliked and dreaded it, but because it had come to them too late for proper consideration. Ministers were more successful with some other measures. In spite of much conservative opposition they passed a Bill abolishing religious tests in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and throwing open all academic distinctions and privileges except Divinity Degrees and Clerical Fellowships to students of all creeds and faiths."

_R. Wilson, Life and Times of Queen Victoria, volume 2, chapter 16._

ALSO IN: _G. W. E. Russell, The Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, chapter 9._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1871-1872. Renewed negotiations with the United States. The Treaty of Washington and the Geneva Award.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1869-1871; 1871; and 1871-1872.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1873-1879. Rise of the Irish Home Rule Party and organization of the Land League.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1873-1879.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1873-1880. Decline and fall of the Gladstone government. Disraeli's Ministry. His rise to the peerage, as Earl of Beaconsfield. The Eastern Question. Overthrow of the administration. The Second Gladstone Ministry.

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"One of the little wars in which we had to engage broke out with the Ashantees, a misunderstanding resulting from our purchase of the Dutch possessions (1873) in their neighbourhood. Troops and marines under Wolseley … were sent out to West Africa. Crossing the Prah River, January 20th, 1874, he defeated the Ashantees on the last day of that month at a place called Amoaful, entered and burnt their capital, Coomassie, and made a treaty with their King, Koffee, by which he withdrew all claims of sovereignty over the tribes under our protection. The many Liberal measures carried by the Ministry caused moderate men to wish for a halt. Some restrictions on the licensed vintners turned that powerful body against the Administration, which, on attempting to carry an Irish University Bill in 1873, became suddenly aware of its unpopularity, as the second reading was only carried by a majority of three. Resignation followed. The erratic, but astute, Disraeli declined to undertake the responsibility of governing the country with the House of Commons then existing, consequently Mr. Gladstone resumed office; yet Conservative reaction progressed. He in September became Chancellor of the Exchequer (still holding the Premiership) and 23rd January, 1874, he suddenly dissolved Parliament, promising in a letter to the electors of Greenwich the final abolition of the income tax, and a reduction in some other 'imposts.' The elections went against him. The 'harassed' interests overturned the Ministry (17th February, 1874). … On the accession of the Conservative Government under Mr. Disraeli (February, 1874), the budget showed a balance of six millions in favour of the reduction of taxation. Consequently the sugar duties were abolished and the income tax reduced to 2d. in the pound. This, the ninth Parliament of Queen Victoria, sat for a little over six years. … Mr. Disraeli, now the Earl of Beaconsfield, was fond of giving the country surprises. One of these consisted in the purchase of the interest of the Khedive of Egypt in the Suez Canal for four millions sterling (February, 1876). Another was the acquisition of the Turkish Island of Cyprus, handed over for the guarantee to Turkey of her Asiatic provinces in the event of any future Russian encroachments. … As war had broken out in several of the Turkish provinces (1876), and as Russia had entered the lists for the insurgents against the Sultan, whom England was bound to support by solemn treaties, we were treated to a third surprise by the conveyance, in anticipation of a breach with Russia, of 7,000 troops from India to Malta. The Earl of Derby, looking upon this manœuvre as a menace to that Power, resigned his office, which was filled by Lord Salisbury (1878). … The war proving disastrous to Turkey, the treaty of St. Stephano (February, 1878), was concluded with Russia, by which the latter acquired additional territory in Asia Minor in violation of the treaty of Paris (1856). Our Government strongly remonstrated, and war seemed imminent. Through the intercession, however, of Bismarck, the German Chancellor, war was averted, and a congress soon met in Berlin, at which Britain was represented by Lords Salisbury and Beaconsfield; the result being the sanction of the treaty already made, with the exception that the town of Erzeroum was handed back to Turkey. Our ambassadors returned home rather pompously, the Prime Minister loftily declaring, that they had brought back 'peace with honour.' … Our expenses had rapidly increased, the wealthy commercial people began to distrust a Prime Minister who had brought us to the brink of war, the Irish debates, Irish poverty, and Irish outrages had brought with them more or less discredit on the Ministry. … The Parliament was dissolved March 24th, but the elections went so decisively in favour of the Liberals that Beaconsfield resigned (April 23rd). Early in the following year he appeared in his place in the House of Peers, but died April 19th. Though Mr. Gladstone had in 1875 relinquished the political leadership in favour of Lord Hartington yet the 'Bulgarian Atrocities' and other writings brought him again so prominent before the public that his leadership was universally acknowledged by the party. … He now resumed office, taking the two posts so frequently held before by Prime Ministers since the days of William Pitt, who also held them. … The result of the general election of 1880 was the return of more Liberals to Parliament than Conservatives and Home Rulers together. The farming interest continued depressed both in Great Britain and Ireland, resulting in thousands of acres being thrown on the landlords' hands in the former country, and numerous harsh evictions in the latter for non-payment of rent. Mr. Gladstone determined to legislate anew on the Irish Land Question: and (1881) carried through both Houses that admirable measure known as the Irish Land Act, which for the first time in the history of that country secured to the tenant remuneration for his own industry. A Land Commission Court was established to fix Fair Rents for a period of 15 years. After a time leaseholders were included in this beneficent legislation."

_R. Johnston, A Short History of the Queen's Reign, pages 49-57._

ALSO IN: _J. A. Froude, Lord Beaconsfield, chapters 16-17._

_G. B. Smith, Life of Gladstone, chapters 22-28 (volume 2)._

_H. Jephson, The Platform, chapters 21-22 (volume 2)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1877. Assumption by the Queen of the title of Empress of India.

See INDIA: A. D. 1877.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1877-1878. The Eastern Question again. Bulgarian atrocities. Excitement over the Russian successes in Turkey. War-clamor of "the Jingoes." The fleet sent through the Dardanelles. Arrangement of the Berlin Congress.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1875-1878; and TURKS: A. D. 1878.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1877-1881. Annexation of the Transvaal. The Boer War.

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1878. The Congress of Berlin. Acquisition of the control of Cyprus.

See TURKS: A. D. 1878.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1878-1880. The second Afghan War.

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1869-1881.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1880. Breach between the Irish Party and the English Liberals.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1880.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1882. War in Egypt. Bombardment of Alexandria. Battle of Tel-el-Kebir.

See EGYPT: A. D. 1875-1882, and 1882-1883.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1883. The Act for Prevention of Corrupt and Illegal Practices at Parliamentary Elections.

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