Part 17 (1/2)
Any interference with the prerogatives or absoluteness of an established church inst.i.tution is sure to arouse vigorous opposition. The disestablishment Bill, introduced on the 1st of March, 1869, was greeted in Ireland with the wildest protests from those interested in the Establishment. One synod, with a large a.s.sumption of inspired knowledge, denounced it as ”highly offensive to the Almighty G.o.d.” A martial clergyman offered to ”kick the queen's crown into the Boyne,” if she a.s.sented to any such measure. Another proposed to fight with the Bible in one hand the and sword in the other.
These wild outbreaks of theological partisans.h.i.+p had no effect on Gladstone, whose speech was one of the greatest marvels amongst his oratorical achievements. His chief opponent declared that though it lasted three hours, it did not contain a redundant word. The scheme which it unfolded -- a scheme which withdrew the temporal establishment of a Church in such a manner that the church was benefited, not injured, and which lifted from the backs of an oppressed people an intolerable burden - was a triumph of creative genius.
Disraeli's speech in opposition to this measure was referred bo by the LONDON TIMES as flimsiness relieved by spangles.” After a debate in which Mr. Bright made one of his most famous speeches, the bill was carried by a majority of 118. Before this strong manifestation of the popular will the House of Lords, which deeply disliked the bill, felt obliged to give way, and pa.s.sed it by a majority of seven.
AN IRISH LAND BILL
In 1870 Mr. Gladstone introduced his Irish Land Bill, a measure of reform which Parliament had for years refused to grant. By it the tenant was given the right to hold his farm as long as he paid his rent, and received a claim upon the improvement made by himself and his predecessors - a tenant-right which he could sell. This bill was triumphantly carried; and another important Liberal measure, Mr. Forster's Education bill, became law.
Other liberal measures were pa.s.sed, but the tide which had set so long in this direction turned at last, the government was defeated in 1873 on a bill for University Education, and in a subsequent election the Liberal party met with defeat. Gladstone at once resigned and was succeeded by Disraeli. Two years later the latter was raised to the peerage by the Queen under the t.i.tle of the Earl of Beaconsfield. Gladstone was not in the field for honors of this type. He much preferred to inherit the t.i.tle of a distinguished predecessor, that of ”The Great Commoner.” During his recess from office he occupied himself in literary labors and as a critical commentator upon the foreign policy of Disraeli, which plunged the country into a Zulu war which Gladstone denounced as ”one of the most monstrous and indefensible in our history,” and an Afghan war which he described as a national crime.
These and other acts of Tory policy in time brought liberalism again into the forefront, an election held in 1880 resulted in a great Liberal victory, Disraeli (then Lord Beaconsfield) resigned and Gladstone was once again called to the head of the ministry.
In the new administration the foreign policy, the meddling in the concerns of the East, which had held precedence over domestic affairs under the preceding administration, vanished from sight, and the Irish question again became prominent. Ireland had now gained an able leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, founder of the Irish Land League, a trade union of Irish farmers, and its affairs could no longer be consigned to the background.
Gladstone, in a.s.suming control of the new government, was quite unaware of the task before him. When he had completed his work with the Church and the Land bills ten years before, he fondly fancied that the Irish question was definitely settled. The Home Rule movement, which was started in 1870, seemed to him a wild delusion which would die away of itself. In 1884 he said: ”I frankly admit that I had had much upon my hands connected with the doings of the Beaconsfield Government in every quarter of the world, and I did not know - no one knew - the severity of the crisis that was already swelling upon the horizon, and that shortly after rushed upon us like a flood.”
DESPERATE STATE OF IRELAND
He was not long is discovering the gravity of the situation, of which the House had been warned by Mr. Parnell. The famine had brought its crop of misery, and, while the charitable were seeking to relieve the distress, many of the landlords were turning adrift their tenants for non-payment of rents. The Irish party brought in a Bill for the Suspension of Evictions, which the government replaced by a similar one for Compensation for Disturbance. This was pa.s.sed with a large majority by the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords, and Ireland was left to face its misery without relief.
The state of Ireland at that moment was too critical to be dealt with in this manner. The rejection of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill was, to the peasantry whom it had been intended to protect, a message of despair, and it was followed by the usual symptom of despair in Ireland, an outbreak of agrarian crime. On the one hand over 17,000 persons were evicted; on the other there was a dreadful crop of murders and outrages. The Land League sought to do what Parliament did not; but in doing so it came in contact with the law. Moreover, the revolution - for revolution it seemed to be - grew too formidable for its control; the utmost it succeeded in doing was in some sense to ride without directing the storm. The first decisive step of Mr.
Forster, the chief secretary for Ireland, was to strike a blow at the Land League. In November he ordered the prosecution of Mr.
Parnell, Mr. Biggar, and several of the officials of the organization, and before the year was out he announced his intention of introducing a Coercion Bill. This step threw the Irish members under Mr. Parnell and the Liberal Government into relations of definitive antagonism.
THE COERCION BILL
Mr. Forster introduced his Coercion Bill on January 24, 1881. It was a formidable measure, which enabled the chief secretary, by signing a warrant, to arrest any man on suspicion of having committed a given offense, and to imprison him without trial at the pleasure of the government. It practically suspended the liberties of Ireland. The Irish members exhausted every resource of parliamentary action in resisting it, and their tactics resulted in several scenes unprecedented in parliamentary history. In order to pa.s.s the bill it was necessary to suspend them in a body several times. Mr. Gladstone, with manifest pain, found himself, as leader of the House, the agent by whom this extreme resolve had to be executed.
The Coercion Bill pa.s.sed, Mr. Gladstone introduced his Land Bill of 1881, which was the measure of conciliation intended to balance the measure of repression. This was really a great and sweeping reform, whose dominant feature was the introduction of the novel and far-reaching principle of the state stepping in between landlord and tenant and fixing the rents. The bill had some defects, as a series of amending acts, which were subsequently pa.s.sed by both Liberal and Tory governments, proved; but, apart from these, it was on the whole the greatest measure of land reform ever pa.s.sed for Ireland by the Imperial Parliament.
But Ireland was not yet satisfied. Parnell had no confidence in the good intentions of the government, and took steps to test its honesty, which so angered Mr. Forster that he arrested Mr.
Parnell and several other leaders and p.r.o.nounced the Land League an illegal body. Forster was well-meaning but mistaken. He fancied that by locking up the ring-leaders he could bring quiet to the country. On the contrary, affairs were soon far worse than ever, crime and outrage spreading widely. In despair, Mr. Forster released Parnell and resigned. All now seemed hopeful; coercion had proved a failure; peace and quiet were looked for; when, four days afterward, the whole country was horrified by a terrible crime. The new Secretary for Ireland, Lord Cavendish, and the under-secretary, Mr. Burke, were attacked and hacked to death with knives in Phoenix Park. Everywhere panic and indignation arose. A new Coercion Act was pa.s.sed without delay. It was vigorously put into effect, and a state of virtual war between England and Ireland again came into existence.
WARS IN AFRICA
Meanwhile Great Britain had been brought back into the tide of foreign affairs. Events were taking place abroad which must here be dealt with briefly. The ambitious Briton, who loves to carry the world on his shoulders, had made the control of the Suez Ca.n.a.l an excuse for meddling with the government of Egypt.
The immediate results were a revolution that drove Ismail Pasha from this throne, and a revolt of the people under an ambitious leader named Arabi Pasha, who seized Alexandria and drove out the British, many of whom were killed.
Gladstone, who deprecated war, now found himself with a conflict thrust upon his hands. The British fleet bombarded Alexandria, and the British army occupied it after it had been half reduced to ashes. Soon after General Wolseley defeated Arabi and his army and the insurrection ended. A sequel to this affair was a formidable outbreak in the Soudan, under El Mahdi, a Mohammedan fanatic, who captured the city of Khartoum and killed the famous General Gordon. Years pa.s.sed before Upper Egypt was reconquered, it being recovered only at the close of the century. Since then Egypt has remained under British control.
There were serious troubles also in South Africa. The British of Cape Colony had pushed their way into the Boer settlement of the Transvaal, claiming jurisdiction over it. The valiant Dutch settlers broke into war, and dealt the invaders a signal defeat at Majuba Hill. This was the opening step in a series of occurrences which led to the later Boer war, in which the British, with great loss, conquered the Boers, followed in later years by a practical reconquest of the country by its Boer inhabitants in peaceful ways.
Such were the wars of the Gladstone administration, events of which he did not approve, but into which he was irresistibly drawn. At home the Irish question continued in the forefront. The African wars having weakened the administration, a vigorous a.s.sault was made on it by the Irish party in 1885, and it fell.
But its demise was a very brief one. After a short experience of a Tory ministry under Lord Salisbury, Parnell's party rallied to Gladstone's side, the new government was defeated, and on February 1, 1886, Gladstone became Prime Minister for the third time.
HOME RULE FOR IRELAND
During the brief interval his opinions had suffered a great revolution. He no longer thought that Ireland had all it could justly demand. He returned to power as an advocate of a most radical measure, that of Home Rule for Ireland, a restoration of that separate Parliament which it had lost in 1800. He also had a scheme to buy out the Irish landlords and establish a peasant proprietary by state aid. His new views were revolutionary in character, but he did not hesitate - he never hesitated to do what his conscience told him was right. On April 8, 1886, he introduced to Parliament his Home Rule Bill.