it over and asked the Government to reduce the postage on letters between all places in Great Britain and Ireland to a penny. The change, he declared, would be a great boon to the poor, and also in time increase instead of diminishing the revenue of the Government, as the number of letters written would be enormously greater than it had been under the old system. As, in consequence of the large increase of letters carried, the postmen would no longer have time to collect the pennies from the receivers, it would be neces sary to charge them upon the senders, and this, Rowland Hill thought, could be done most conveniently by making them buy postage stamps, which had been before unknown. For some time the Post-Office officials and the ministers laughed at the scheme, but public opinion rose in its favour, and, in 1839, the adoption of the new system was ordered, though it did not come into complete force till 1840, up to which time there was a uniform charge of fourpence. The system of low payments and postage stamps has since been adopted by every country in the civilised world. 15. Education. 1833-1839.-At the time of the Reform Act general education was at a low ebb. In 1833 Parliament for the first time gave assistance to education by granting 20,000l. annually towards the building of school-houses. In 1839 this grant was increased to 30,000l., and its distribution was placed under the direction of a Committee of the Privy Council, called the 'Committee of the Privy Council on Education,' in whose hands the management of public instruction has rested ever since. The Committee was not to teach, but to see that, where public money was employed, the teaching was satisfactory. married 16. The Queen's Marriage. 1840. In 1840 the queen her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, a man of varied learning and accomplishments. What was of more importance, he brought with him affectionate devotion to his young wife, together with a tact and refinement of mind which made him her wisest counsellor. Knowing many things about which Englishmen at that time cared little, he did much towards the development of culture and art in the country. 17. Palmerston and Spain. 1833-1839. The policy of friendship between England and France, which had led to the establishment of Belgian independence (see p. 912), had been continued by Lord Palmerston during the early stages of the second Melbourne ministry. Ferdinand VII. of Spain had for some time before his death in 1833 hesitated whether he should declare as his successor his little daughter Isabella-who, according to old 1831-1838 SPAIN AND THE EAST 921 Spanish law, was capable of inheriting-or his brother, Don Carlos, who claimed in virtue of the so-called Salic law (see p. 232) introduced by the Bourbons. On the side of Don Carlos were the priests, on the side of the child was her mother, and the dying man listened in the end to his wife rather than to the priests. Isabella became queen, and her mother, Christina, regent. The Basque Provinces and the priests and absolutists all over Spain took the side of Don Carlos, and a civil war marked by horrible cruelties on both sides was the result. As Don Carlos declared himself an absolute king, Christina was obliged, in word at least, to profess herself a constitutionalist. Louis Philippe and Palmerston would not interfere directly, but they agreed to interfere indirectly on behalf of Christina and Isabella: Louis Philippe by cutting off the supplies from the Carlists, Palmerston by allowing a British legion of 10,000 men to be enlisted for service against them. The legion fought well, but the Spanish Government did little for it, and it was dissolved in 1838. The habit of interfering in Spanish quarrels led to a habit of interfering in Spanish politics, and as France and England often took opposite sides in supporting or assailing Spanish ministries, there gradually sprang up an unfortunate coolness between the two. Ultimately, in 1839, the Carlists were overpowered, and there was no further question of foreign interference. 18. Palmerston and the Eastern Question. 1831-1839.-The results of the interference of England in the East were more momentous than the results of her interference in Spain. In 1831 Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, sent Ibrahim (see p. 884) to attack the Pasha of Acre. Ibrahim, against whom the Sultan, Mahmoud, sent a Turkish army in 1832, not only defeated the Turks at Konieh, the ancient Iconium, but crossed the Taurus Mountains into Asia Minor and overthrew the last army which the Sultan could muster. Mahmoud, knowing that Constantinople itself was now at the mercy of the Egyptians, called on the Tzar, his old enemy, for aid. Accordingly, in 1833, an arrangement was made at Kutaya by which Mehemet Ali stopped hostilities on receiving all Syria and the province of Adana in addition to his own Pashalic. Later in the same year, in reward for Russia's support, the Sultan signed the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, by which he bound himself to the Tzar to close the Dardanelles to foreign war ships whenever the Tzar was at war. If this treaty took effect the Russians would be able to train their sailors unmolested in the Black Sea, whilst they would be able to send their fleet out through III. 30 the Dardanelles, and to bring it back to a place of safety whenever they pleased. Both England and France disliked this arrangement, but while Palmerston thought that the best remedy was the strengthening of the power of the Sultan, the French Government thought it better to strengthen Mehemet Ali, as being a more capable ruler than Mahmoud. In coming to this conclusion the French were no doubt influenced by the fact that Mehemet Ali employed many Frenchmen in his service. In 1839 the war between the Turks and the Egyptians broke out again, and neither England nor France could remain entirely unconcerned. 1839-1841.-The war 19. Threatened Breach with France. was disastrous to the Turks. The army of the Sultan was routed at Nisib. Sultan Mahmoud died before he heard the news, and was succeeded by his son, Abdul Medjid. The Turkish admiral at once sailed off with the fleet under his command, and handed it over at Alexandria to Mehemet Ali. Palmerston insisted that the Egyptians must be driven back, and in 1840, Russia, abandoning the advantages she had gained by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, joined England, Austria, and Prussia in a quadruple Treaty, with the object of enforcing suitable terms on the belligerents. France, left out of the treaty, was deeply exasperated. There was wild talk of avenging Waterloo and reconquering the frontier of the Rhine. The French Prime Minister, Thiers, made every preparation for war. A British admiral, Sir Charles Napier, however, joined by an Austrian squadron, captured Acre, and Mehemet Ali abandoned Syria, receiving from the Sultan in return the hereditary government of Egypt, which he had hitherto held only for his own lifetime. Louis Philippe dismissed Thiers, and placed in office Guizot, a sworn foe to revolutionary projects and revolutionary wars. In 1841 all the powers, including Russia, substituted for the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi an agreement by which the Dardanelles was closed against the war ships of all nations unless the Sultan himself was at war. Time was thus allowed to the Turks to show whether they were capable, as Palmerston thought they were, of reforming their own government. 20. Condition of the Poor. 1837-1841.-The Reform Act of 1832 had brought into power the middle classes, and had been followed by such legislation as was satisfactory to those classes. Little had been done for the artisans and the poor, and their condition was most deplorable. A succession of bad seasons raised the price of wheat from a little ever 395. a quarter in 1835 to a little over 70s. in 1839. Even if food had been cheap the masses dwelling in great cities were exposed to misery against which the 1837-1841 UNSANITARY CONDITIONS 923 law afforded no protection. Crowded and dirty as many of the dwellings of the poor still are, their condition was far worse early in the reign of Victoria. In Manchester, for instance, one-tenth of the population lived in cellars. Each of these cellars was reached through a small area, to which steps descended from a court, often flooded with stagnating filth. A person standing in one of these areas would, according to the statement of a contemporary writer, 'have his head about one foot below the level of the street, and might, at the same time, without the least motion of his body, touch the window of the cellar and the damp, muddy wall right opposite.' The cellar itself was dark, filled with a horrible stench. Here a whole family lived in a single room, the children lying on the 'damp, nay, wet, brick floor through which the stagnant moisture' oozed up. In Bethnal Green and other parts of the east end of London things were quite as bad. Overcrowding added to the horrors of such a life. One small cellar, measuring four yards by five, contained two rooms and eight persons, sleeping four in a bed. In some parts of the country similar evils prevailed. In one parish in Dorset thirtysix persons dwelt, on an average, in each house. All modesty was at an end under these miserable conditions. In one case-and the case was common enough-a father and mother, with their married daughter and her husband, a baby, a boy of sixteen, and two girls, all slept in a single room. People living in such a way were sure to be ignorant and vicious. They were badly paid, and even for their low wages were very much at the mercy of their employers. In spite of the law against 'truck,' as it was called, employers often persisted in paying their men in goods charged above their real prices instead of in money. In one instance a man was obliged to take a piece of cloth worth only 11S. in payment of his wages of 35s. 21. The People's Charter. 1837-1840.-Many remedies were proposed for these evils, but the one which caught the imagination of the workmen themselves was the People's Charter. The six points of the charter were (1) annual parliaments, (2) manhood suffrage, (3) vote by ballot, (4) equal electoral districts, (5) abolition of the property qualification for entering Parliament, and (6) payment for members of the House of Commons. Those who supported the charter thought that, as the acquisition of political power had enabled the middle classes to redress their grievances, the working class would in like way be able to redress theirs. They did not recognise the unfortunate truth that the working class still needed the political education without which political power is dangerous even to those who exercise it. In 1839 large meetings 302 |