1874-1878 LAST YEARS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 969

which, in 1843, became a British colony. Others founded the Orange River Free State and the Transvaal Republic, both of which the British Government finally recognised as independent states. In spite of emigration and Kaffir wars, the British colonists continually pressed further north, and in 1871 the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley attracted immigrants and capital to the colony. That which distinguishes the South African settlements of Great Britain from those in North America and Australia, is the enormous preponderance of a native population. Out of every six inhabitants five are natives. The total white population in 1891, excluding the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, amounted to about 430,000 persons.

CHAPTER LXI

THE LAST YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

1874-1901

1. The Disraeli (Beaconsfield) Ministry. 1874-1880.-The Conservative ministry, formed under Disraeli in 1874, contented itself for some time with domestic legislation. In 1876 troubles broke out in the Balkan Peninsula, caused by the misdeeds of the Turkish officials. Servia and Montenegro made war upon the Turks, and in January 1877 a conference of European ministers was held at Constantinople to settle all questions at issue. Nothing, however, was done to coerce the Turkish Government into better behaviour, and as other European powers refused to act, Russia declared war against Turkey. After a long and doubtful struggle, the Turkish power of resistance collapsed early in 1878, and a treaty between Russia and the Sultan was signed at San Stefano, by which the latter abandoned a considerable amount of territory. Disraeli, who had recently been made Earl of Beaconsfield, insisted that no engagement between Russia and Turkey would be valid unless it were confirmed by a European congress, and a congress was accordingly held at Berlin. By the Treaty of Berlin, which was signed in the course of 1878, Roumania and Servia became independent kingdoms, with some addition to their territory; Montenegro was also enlarged, and Bulgaria erected into a principality paying tribute to the Sultan; whilst a district to which the name of Eastern Roumelia was given was to be ruled by a Christian governor nominated by the Sultan, who was to have the right of

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garrisoning fortresses in the Balkan Mountains. Russia acquired the piece of land near the mouth of the Danube, which she had lost after the Crimean War, and also another piece of land round Kars, which she had just conquered. The Sultan was recommended to cede Thessaly and part of Epirus to Greece. The protectorate over Bosnia and Herzegovina was given to Austria, and, by a separate convention, Cyprus was given to England on condition of paying tribute to the Sultan and protecting Asia Minor, which the Sultan promised to govern on an improved system. These arrangements have remained to the present day (1901), except that the Sultan has never garrisoned the fortresses in the Balkans, and that Eastern Roumelia has been annexed by its own population to Bulgaria, whilst the Sultan has only given over Thessaly to Greece, refusing to abandon any part of Epirus. In 1879 Egypt, having become practically bankrupt, was brought under the dual control of England and France. In South Africa, the territory of the republic of the Transvaal was annexed in 1877, and in 1879 there was a war with the Zulus, which began with the slaughter of a British force, though it ended in a complete victory. In Asia a second Afghan War broke out in 1878, arising from the attempt to establish a British agent at Cabul in order to check Russian intrigues. An impression grew up in the country that the Government was too fond of war, and when Parliament was dissolved in 1880, a considerable Liberal majority was returned.

2. The Second Gladstone Ministry. 1880-1885.--Gladstone formed a ministry which was soon confronted by difficulties in Ireland. There were troubles arising from the relations between landlord and tenant, and a Land League had been formed to support the tenants in their contentions with their landlords. There had also for some little time been amongst the Irish members a parliamentary party which demanded Home Rule, or the concession of an Irish parliament for the management of Irish affairs. This party was led by Parnell. In 1880 the ministry, in which the leading authority on Irish questions was Forster, the Irish Secretary, brought in a Compensation for Disturbance Bill, giving an evicted tenant compensation for the loss falling on him by being thrust out of his holding. This Bill passed the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords. In 1881 the ministry carried another fresh Land Act, appointing a land court to fix rents which were not to be changed for fifteen years. At the same time it carried an Act for the protection of life and property, intended to suppress the murders and outrages which were rife in Ireland, by authorising

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the imprisonment of suspected persons without legal trial. In 1881 Parnell and other leading Irishmen were arrested, but in 1882 the Government let them out of prison, with the intention of pursuing a more conciliatory course. On this Forster resigned. His successor, Lord Frederick Cavendish, was murdered, together with the Irish Under-Secretary, Burke, in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, by a band of ruffians who called themselves Invincibles. An Act for the prevention of crimes was then passed. The Irish members of parliament continued bitterly hostile to the ministry. On the other hand, some at least of the members of the Government and of their supporters were becoming convinced that another method for the suppression of violence than compulsion must be employed, if Ireland was ever to be tranquil.

As had been the case with the last Government, foreign complications discredited the ministry. In 1880 the Dutch inhabitants of the Transvaal rose against the English government set up in their territory in 1877, and drove back with slaughter at Majuba Hill a British force sent against them. On this, the home government restored the independence of the republic, subject to its acknowledgment of the suzerainty of Great Britain. The greatest trouble, however, arose in Egypt. In 1882 an insurrection headed by Arabi Pacha with the object of getting rid of European influence, broke out against the Khedive, as the Pacha of Egypt had been called since his power had become hereditary (see p. 922). France, which had joined Great Britain in establishing the dual control, refused to act, and the British Government sent a fleet and army to overthrow Arabi. The forts of Alexandria were destroyed by the fleet, and a great part of the town burnt by the native populace. Sir Garnet Wolseley, at the head of a British army, defeated Arabi's troops at Tel-el-Kebir, and since that time the British Government has temporarily assumed the protectorate of Egypt, helping the Khedive to improve the condition of the Egyptian people. Farther south, in the Soudan, a Mahommedan fanatic calling himself the Mahdi roused his Mahommedan followers against the tyranny of the Egyptian officials, and almost the whole country broke loose from Egyptian control. An Egyptian army under an Englishman, Hicks, was massacred, and a few posts, of which the principal was Khartoum, alone held out. An enthusiastic and heroic Englishman, General Gordon, who had at one time put down a widespread rebellion in China, and had at another time been governor of the Soudan, here he had been renowned for his justice and kindliness as well

as for his vigour, offered to go out, in the hope of saving the people at Khartoum from being overwhelmed by the Mahdi. The Government sent him off, but refused to comply with his requests. In 1884 Gordon's position was so critical that Wolseley, now Lord Wolseley, was sent to relieve him. It was too late, for in January 1335, before Wolseley could reach Khartoum, the town was betrayed into the hands of the Mahdi, and Gordon himself murdered. The vacillation of the Cabinet, probably resulting from differences of opinion inside it, alienated a large amount of public opinion. In Asia, Russia was pushing on in the direction of Afghanistan, and in 1885 seized a post called Penjdeh. For a time war with Russia seemed imminent, but eventually an arrangement was come to which left Penjdeh in Russian hands. At home, in 1884, by an agreement between Liberals and Conservatives, a third Reform Act was passed, conferring the franchise in the counties on the same conditions as those on which it had been conferred by the second Reform Act on the boroughs. The county constituencies and those in the large towns were split up into separate constituencies, each of them returning a single member, so that with a few exceptions no constituency now returns more than one. The ministry was by this time thoroughly unpopular, and in 1885 it was defeated and resigned, being followed by a Conservative Government under Lord Salisbury.

3. The First Salisbury Ministry.-The Government formed by Lord Salisbury in June 1885 lasted little more than seven months. It annexed Upper Burma to the British dominions, and passed an Act to facilitate the purchase of Irish land by the tenants. The general election of the autumn gave the Liberals a majority over the Conservatives, but left the eighty-six Irish Nationalists the arbiters of the situation. When the Irish members discovered that the Government intended to bring in a new bill for the suppression of crime in Ireland, and that Mr. Gladstone was favourable to Home Rule, they threw their weight into the scale of the Opposition, and Lord Salisbury's Government fell. (January 1886.)

4. The Third Gladstone Ministry.-Mr. Gladstone again formed a ministry, and at once introduced a bill for granting selfgovernment to Ireland. By the "Home Rule" Bill Ireland was to have, under certain restrictions, a Parliament of its own, and Irish members were no longer to sit in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster. He put forward also a comprehensive scheme for buying out the Irish landlords and selling their lands to the tenants,

1874-1901 LAST YEARS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 973 which was to be carried out by the expenditure of fifty millions advanced by the Imperial exchequer. Both plans met with great opposition, even amongst his own followers. Some thought that the sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament was not sufficiently secured and that the unity of the empire would be endangered : others that the money borrowed to buy the land would not be repaid. Several members of the ministry resigned, and ninetythree Liberals voted against the second reading of the Home Rule Bill, so that it was rejected by a majority of thirty. Mr. Gladstone appealed to the country, but in the election which followed the Conservatives and the Liberal-Unionists, as the dissentient Liberals called themselves, obtained a majority of 118 over the Home Rulers. (July 1886.)

5. The Second Salisbury Ministry.-Lord Salisbury's ministry did not include any Liberal-Unionists, but they firmly supported it throughout its existence. The first difficulty the Government had to deal with was the condition of Ireland. Since the passing of Mr. Gladstone's Land Act in 1881 the prices of all kinds of farm produce had fallen considerably, so that farmers were often unable to pay the rents which had been fixed as fair. Some landlords made equitable remissions to their tenants; others ignored the fall in prices and refused to make any. In many places the tenants combined to resist eviction, adopting a scheme called the Plan of Campaign, by which they offered to pay their landlord what they themselves deemed a fair rent, and if he refused to accept it as sufficient applied the money to the relief of the tenants whom he evicted. The Government brought in a Crimes Act (1887) to put down illegal combinations among the tenants, suppressed the meetings of the National League, and imprisoned many Irish members of Parliament. It adopted also various remedial measures, such as admitting leaseholders, hitherto excluded, to the right of having their rents fixed by the land courts, and enabling tenants under certain conditions to obtain the revision of rents fixed before the fall in prices. Acts were also passed to facilitate the purchase of land by tenants, for the Irish policy of Lord Salisbury aimed rather at the increase of peasant proprietorship than the regulation of the system of dual ownership.

In Great Britain Lord Salisbury's ministry carried two excellent reforms. One completed the Elementary Education Act of 1870 by making education free in all elementary schools. (1891.) The other followed up the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, somewhat tardily it is true, by placing the government of the counties in the