Chapter LX ANTECEDENTS AND RESULTS OF THE SECOND LEADING DATES THE SECOND DERBY MINISTRY, 1858-THE SECOND PALMERSTON MIN- W HEN the Indian Mutiny was crushed the Palmerston Ministry no longer existed. Palmerston's readiness to enforce his will on foreign nations had led him, in 1857, to provoke a war with China which the majority of the House of Commons condemned as unjustifiable. He dissolved Parliament and appealed to the fighting instincts of the nation, and though not only Cobden and Bright, but Gladstone, joined the Conservatives against him, he obtained a sweeping majority in the new Parliament. Curiously enough, he was turned out of office, in 1858, by this very same Parliament, on a charge of truckling to the French Emperor. Explosive bombs, wherewith to murder Napoleon III., were manufactured in England, and plans for using them against him were laid on English soil. The attempt was made by an Italian, Orsini, and upon its failure the French Government and people called upon the English Government to prevent such designs in future. Palmerston brought in a Conspiracy-to-Murder Bill, the object of which was to punish those who contrived the assassination of foreign princes on English soil. This measure, desirable as it was, was unpopular in England, because some Frenchmen talked abusively of Englishmen as protectors of murderers, and even called on the Emperor to invade England. Parliament refused to be 1858-1861 bullied even into doing a good thing, and, the bill being rejected, the Palmerston Ministry resigned. Lord Derby became Prime Minister a second time, and in 1859 Disraeli, who was again Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, brought in a Reform Bill, which was rejected by the House of Commons. A new ministry was formed which, like Lord Aberdeen's in 1852, comprised Whigs and Peelites. Palmerston was Prime Minister, Russell Foreign Secretary, and Gladstone Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1860 Russell brought in a Reform Bill, but the country did not care about it, and even Russell perceived that it was useless to press it. It was withdrawn, and no other similar measure was proposed while Palmerston lived. The country, indeed, was agitated about other matters., Napoleon had annexed Savoy and Nice after a successful war with Austria in behalf of the liberation of Italy, and suspicions were entertained that, having succeeded in defeating Austria, he might think of trying to defeat either Prussia or England. Already, while Lord Derby was Prime Minister, young men had come forward to serve as volunteers in defense of the country. Palmerston gave great encouragement to the movement, and before long corps of volunteers were established in every county, as a permanent part of the British army. Napoleon did not really want to quarrel with England, and before long an opportunity presented itself for binding the two nations together. The Emperor warmly adopted a scheme for a commercial treaty between England and France which had been suggested by Cobden, and which was also supported by Gladstone, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had been completing Peel's work by carrying out the principles of free trade. In 1860 was signed the Commercial Treaty, in virtue of which English goods were admitted into France at low duties, while French wines and other articles were treated in England in the same way. At a later time the power of the Emperor came to an end, and France took the earliest opportunity to annul a treaty the value of which she was unable to appreciate. In 1861 a terrible war broke out in the United States between the Southern States, which held to slavery and the right to secede from the Union, and the Northern States, which believed the opposite. English opinion was divided on the subject. The upper classes, for the most part, sided with the South, while the working 1861-1862 men sympathized with the North. Towards the end of 1861 the Confederate Government dispatched two agents, Mason and Slidell, to Europe in an English mail steamer to seek for the friendship of England and France. They were taken out of the steamer by the captain of a United States man-of-war. As it was contrary to the rules of international law to seize anyone on board a neutral ship, the British Government protested, and prepared to make war with the United States if they refused to surrender the agents. Fortunately the United States Government promptly surrendered the men, honorably acknowledging that its officer had acted wrongly, and the miserable spectacle of a war between two nations which ought always to be bound together by ties of brotherhood was averted. When the demand for the surrender of Mason and Slidell was being prepared in England, Prince Albert, who had lately received the title of Prince Consort, lay upon what proved to be his deathbed. His last act was to suggest that some passages in the English dispatch, which might possibly give offense in America, should be more courteously expressed. On December 14, 1861, he died. His whole married life had been one of continuous self-abnegation. He never put himself forward, or aspired to the semblance of power; but he placed his intelligence and tact at the service of the queen and the country, softening down asperities and helping on the smooth working of the machinery of government. The fleet of the United States had from the beginning of the war blockaded the Southern ports, and many English merchants fitted out steamers to run through the blockading squadrons, carrying goods to the Confederates and taking away cotton in return. The Confederates, who had no navy, were anxious to attack the commercial marine of their enemies, and ordered a swift war-steamer to be built at Birkenhead by an English shipbuilder, which, after it had put to sea, was named the Alabama. The Alabama took a large number of American merchant ships, sinking the ships after removing the crews and the valuable part of the cargo. Such proceedings caused the greatest indignation in America, where it was held that the British Government ought to have seized the Alabama before it put to sea as being in reality a ship of war which ought not to be allowed to start on its career from a neutral harbor. Some years afterwards England had to pay heavy damages to the United States for the losses arising in consequence 1861-1865 of the mismanagement of the Government in allowing this ship to sail. In the meanwhile great suffering was caused in the North of England by the stoppage of the supplies of cotton from America, in consequence of the blockade of the Southern ports. It was on American cotton that the cotton mills in Lancashire had almost exclusively depended. Mills were either stopped or kept going only for a few hours in the week. Thousands were thrown out of work. Yet not only were the sufferers patient under their misfortune, but they refused to speak evil of the Northern States, whose blockading operations had been the cause of their misery. Believing that slaveowning was a crime, and that the result of the victory of the Northern States would be the downfall of slavery in America, they suffered in silence rather than ask that England should aid a cause which in their hearts they condemned. In 1864 the American civil war ended by the complete victory of the North. Slavery was brought to an end in the whole of the territory of the United States. The conquerors showed themselves most merciful in the hour of victory, setting themselves deliberately to win back the hearts of the conquered. Such a spectacle could not fail to influence the course of English politics. A democratic government, sorely tried, had shown itself strong and merciful. The cause of democratic progress also gained adherents through the abnegation of the workingmen of Lancashire in the time of the cotton famine. Those who willingly suffered on behalf of what they believed to be a righteous cause could hardly be debarred much longer from the exercise of the full rights of citizenship. Although Parliamentary reform could not be long delayed, it was not likely to come as long as Lord Palmerston lived. He was the most popular man in England: cheery, high-spirited, and worthily representing the indomitable courage of the race to which he belonged. He was now eighty years of age, and the old system did well enough for him. On the other hand, Gladstone, whose energy and financial success gave him an authority only second to that of Palmerston in the House of Commons, declared for reform. In 1865 a new Parliament was elected. On October 18, before it met, Palmerston died. He had been brisk and active to the last, but there was work now to be done needing the hands and hearts of younger men. Russell, who had been created Earl Russell in 1861, succeeded 1865-1867 Palmerston as Prime Minister, and Gladstone became leader of the House of Commons. When the session opened in 1866 the ministry introduced a Reform Bill, with the object of lowering the fran chise in counties and boroughs. The majority in the House of Commons did not care about reform, and though the House did not directly throw out the bill, so many objections were raised, mairly by dissatisfied Liberals, and so much time was lost in discussing them, that the ministry came to the conclusion that the House did not wish to pass it. On this they resigned, intending to show by so doing that they really cared about the bill, and were ready to sacrifice office for its sake. For the third time Lord Derby became Prime Minister, with Disraeli again as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. It soon appeared that, though the House of Commons cared little for reform, the workingmen cared for it much. Crowded and enthusiastic meetings were held in most of the large towns in the north. In London, the Government having prohibited a meeting appointed to be held in Hyde Park, the crowd finding the gates shut, broke down the railings and rushed in. Disraeli, quick to perceive that the country was determined to have reform, made up his mind to be the minister to give it; and, as he was able to carry his usual supporters with him, the opposition of the discontented Liberals-through which the Reform Bill of the last session had been wrecked-was rendered innocuous. At the opening of the session of 1867 Disraeli first proposed a series of resolutions laying down the principles on which reform ought to be based. Finding that the House of Commons preferred an actual bill, he sketched out the plan of a bill, and then, as it did not please the Houses, withdrew it and brought in a second bill, very differen: from the one which he had first proposed. Three Cabinet ministers, one of whom was Lord Cranborne (who afterwards became Lord Salisbury), resigned rather than accept a bill so democratic as the final proposal. Before the bill got through the House of Commons it became still more democratic. In its final shape every man who paid rates in the boroughs was to have a vote, and in towns therefore household suffrage was practically established, while even lodgers were allowed to vote if they paid 10l. rent and had resided in the same lodgings for a whole year. In the counties the fran chise was given to all who inhabited houses at 12l. rental, while the old freehold suffrage of 40s. was retained. At least in towns |