Part 68 (1/2)

In 1858, after a long and unseemly struggle, the House of Commons was opened to the long-proscribed race; and about a quarter of a century later, the House of Lords admitted to a seat Baron Rothschild, the first peer of Hebrew faith that had ever sat in that body.

DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH (1869).--Forty years after the Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation Act, the English government took another great step in the direction of religious equality, by the disestablishment of the State Church in Ireland.

The Irish have always and steadily refused to accept the religion which their English conquerors have somehow felt constrained to force upon them.

The vast majority of the people are to-day and ever have been Catholics; yet up to the time where we have now arrived these Irish Catholics had been compelled to pay t.i.thes and fees for the maintenance among them of the Anglican Church wors.h.i.+p. Meanwhile their own churches, in which the great ma.s.ses were instructed and cared for spiritually, had to be kept up by voluntary contributions. The proposition to do away with this grievance by the disestablishment of the State Church in Ireland was bitterly opposed by the Conservatives; but at length, after a memorable debate, the Liberals, under the lead of Bright and Gladstone, the latter then prime minister, carried the measure. This was in 1869, but the actual disestablishment was not to take place until the year 1871, at which time the Irish State Church, ceasing to exist as a state inst.i.tution, became a free Episcopal Church. The historian May p.r.o.nounces this ”the most important ecclesiastical matter since the Reformation.”

PROPOSED DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE CHURCH IN ENGLAND AND IN SCOTLAND.

--The perfect application of the principle of religious equality demands, in the opinion of many English Liberals, the disestablishment of the State Church in England and in Scotland. [Footnote: The Established Church in Scotland is the Presbyterian.] They feel that for the government to maintain any particular sect, is to give the State a monopoly in religion.

They would have the churches of all denominations placed on an absolute equality. Especially in Scotland is the sentiment in favor of disestablishment very strong.

3. GROWTH OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE EAST.

THE CLEW TO ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--Seeking the main fact of modern English history, Professor Seeley [Footnote: J. R.

Seeley, in his work ent.i.tled _The Expansion of England_.] finds it in the expansion of England. He says, in substance, that the expansion of England in the New World and in Asia is the formula which sums up for England the history of the last three centuries. As the outgrowth of this extension into remote lands of English population or influence, England has come successively into sharp rivalry with three of the leading powers of Europe, her compet.i.tors in the field of colonization or in the race for empire. The seventeenth century stands out as an age of intense rivalry between England and Spain; the eighteenth was a period of gigantic compet.i.tion between England and France; while the nineteenth has been an age of jealous rivalry between England and Russia.

England triumphed over Spain and France; it remains to be seen whether she will in like manner triumph over Russia.

We have s.p.a.ce simply to indicate how England's foreign policies and wars during the present century have grown out of her Eastern connections, and her fear of the overshadowing influence of the Colossus of the North.

RISE OF THE ENGLISH POWER IN INDIA.--And first, we must say a word respecting the establishment of English authority in India. By the close of the seventeenth century the East India Company (see p. 603) had founded establishments at Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, the three most important centres of English population and influence in India at the present time.

The company's efforts to extend its authority in India were favored by the decayed state into which the Great Mogul Empire--founded in Northern India by the Tartar conquerors (see p. 461)--had fallen, and by the contentions of the independent native princes among themselves.

For a long time it was a matter of doubt whether the empire to be erected upon the ruins of the Great Mogul Empire and of the contending native states should be French or English. About the middle of the eighteenth century the former had the stronger foothold in the peninsula, just as previous to the French and Indian War in the New World they had the stronger hold upon the North American continent.

A terrible crime committed by the Nabob Surajah Dowlah of Bengal, a province lying along the lower courses of the Ganges, determined the fate not only of that native state, but of all India. Moved by jealousy of the growing power of the English, and encouraged by the French, the Nabob attacked and captured the English post at Calcutta. His one hundred and forty-six prisoners he crowded into a close dungeon, called the Black Hole. In the course of a sultry night the larger part of the unfortunate prisoners were suffocated.

The crime was avenged by Robert Clive, the English commander at Madras.

With only 100 English soldiers and 2000 sepoys (native soldiers in European employ), he sailed for Calcutta, recaptured that place, and on the memorable field of Pla.s.sey, scattered to the winds the Nabob's army of 60,000 (1757).

The victory of Pla.s.sey established upon a firm basis the growing power of the Company. During the next one hundred years it extended its authority throughout almost every part of the peninsula. Many of the native princes were, and still are, allowed to retain their thrones, only they must now acknowledge the suzerainty or paramount authority of the English government.

We will now speak briefly of the most important wars and troubles in which England has been involved through her interests in India.

THE AFGHAN WAR OF 1838-1842.--One of the first serious wars into which England was drawn through her jealousy of Russia was what was known as the Afghan War. It was England's policy to maintain the Afghan state as a barrier between her East India possessions and Russia. Persuaded that the ruler of the Afghans, a usurper named Dost Mahommed, was inclined to a Russian alliance, the English determined to dethrone him, and put in his place the legitimate prince. This was done. The Afghans, however, resented this interference in their affairs. They arose in revolt, and forced the English army to retreat from the country. In the wild mountain pa.s.ses leading from Afghanistan into India, the fleeing army, 16,000 in number, counting camp-followers, was cut off almost to a man. The English took signal vengeance. They again invaded the country, defeated the Afghans, punished some of their leaders, burned the chief bazaar of Cabul, and then withdrawing from the country, left the Afghans to themselves.

OPIUM WAR WITH CHINA (1840-1842).--The next war incited by British interest in India was the so-called Opium War with China.

During the first half of the present century the opium traffic between India and China grew into gigantic proportions, and became an important source of wealth to the British merchants, and of revenue to the Indian government. The Chinese government, however, awake to the enormous evils of the growing use of the narcotic, forbade the importation of the drug; but the British merchants, notwithstanding the imperial prohibition, persisted in the trade, and succeeded in smuggling large quant.i.ties of the article into the Chinese market. Finally, the government seized and destroyed all the opium stored in the warehouses of the British traders at Canton. This act, together with other ”outrages,” led to a declaration of war on the part of England. British troops now took possession of Canton, and the Chinese government, whose troops were as helpless as children before European soldiers, was soon forced to agree to the treaty of Nanking, by which the island of Hong-Kong was ceded to the English, several important ports were opened to British traders, and the perpetuation of the nefarious traffic in opium was secured.

THE CRIMEAN WAR (1854-1856).--Scarcely was the Opium War ended before England was involved in a gigantic struggle with Russia,--the Crimean War, already spoken of in connection with Russian history. From our present standpoint we can better understand why England threw herself into the conflict on the side of Turkey. She fought to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, in order that her own great rival, Russia, might be prevented from seizing Constantinople and the Bosporus, and from that point controlling the affairs of Asia through the command of the Eastern Mediterranean.

THE SEPOY MUTINY (1857-1858).--The echoes of the Crimean War had barely died away before England was startled by the most alarming intelligence from the country for the secure possession of which English soldiers had borne their part in the fierce struggle before Sebastopol.