Imperialism and Mr. Gladstone

His Liberal colleagues, perhaps, regard his present enterprise with mixed feelings. Their confidence in their former leader is qualified by doubts of his judgment, and by uncertainty as to the present range of his ambition. They cannot but perceive that he assumes the character of representative of the party, although he probably intends no disloyalty to its official or nominal chiefs. It is true that if, in appealing to the multitude, he pushes his successors aside, they have little right to complain. Almost all of them have of late addressed vehement language to public meetings, though none of them can compete with Mr. Gladstone in the power of stirring political passion. Official subordination is set aside when policy is regulated, not by Parliament, but by the voice of the general population. Senators and Consulars must stand aside in the presence of a Dictator. Although it has long been customary for statesmen to make occasional speeches to public meetings, the extent to which the practice has lately been carried is altogether unprecedented. The result is that the Constitution is gradually weakened by the substitution of numerical majorities for the representatives of the people in Parliament. The approach of a General Election furnishes no sufficient justification for an innovation which accelerates the prevalence of democracy, and aggravates its evil tendencies. Mr. Gladstone himself perhaps understands and approves the organic change which promotes the supremacy of popular eloquence in the State. It is his habit to depreciate the honesty and judgment of the educated classes.

BEACONSFIELD KEEPS COOL

Source.– Holland's Life of the Duke of Devonshire, i. 258. (Longmans and Co.)Lord Beaconsfield to Mr. Gathorne Hardy

It certainly is a relief that the drenching rhetoric has at length ceased – but I have never read a word of it. "Satis eloquentiæ sapientiæ parum."

THE MAIWAND DISASTER (1880)

Source.—Parliamentary Publications, "Afghanistan," C 2,736 of 1880, p. 3Telegram from Viceroy, June 27, 1880, to Secretary of State

Telegram from Thomson at Teheran says: Ayub Khan marching against Candahar with large force. I think we should leave Shere Ali to defend himself beyond the Helmund, but it seems to me, after communicating with Stewart, that it would be inconsistent with security of our military position at Candahar to allow hostile forces to cross that river. I propose, therefore, to instruct Primrose, if Ayub reaches Furrah, to advance towards Girishk with sufficient force to prevent passage of Helmund…

Telegram dated August 2, 1880, from Colonel St. John, Candahar, to Foreign, Simla (p. 33)

29th.– Arrived here yesterday afternoon with General Burrows and Nuttall and remnant of force. Telegraph has been interrupted ever since my arrival. No chance of restoration, so send this by messenger to Chaman. Burrows marched from Kushk-i-Nakhud on morning 27th, having heard from me that Ayub's advanced guard had occupied Maiwand, about three miles from the latter place. Enemy's cavalry appeared advancing from direction of Haidrabad, their camp on Helmund ten miles above Girishk. Artillery and cavalry engaged them at 9 a.m., so shortly afterwards whole force of enemy appeared, and formed line of battle – seven regiments, regulars in centre, three others in reserve; about 2,000 cavalry on right; 400 mounted men and 2,000 Ghazis and irregular infantry on left; other cavalry and irregulars in reserve; five or six batteries of guns, including one of breechloaders, distributed at intervals. Estimated total force, 12,000. Ground slightly undulating, enemy being well posted. Till 1 p.m. action confined to artillery fire, which so well sustained and directed by enemy that our superior quality armament failed to compensate for inferior number of guns. After development of rifle fire, our breechloaders told; but vigorous advance of cavalry against our left, and Ghazis along the front, caused native infantry to fall back in confusion on 66th, abandoning two guns. Formation being lost, infantry retreated slowly; and in spite of gallant efforts of General Burrows to rally them, were cut off from cavalry and artillery. This was at 3 p.m., and followers and baggage were streaming away towards Candahar. After severe fighting in enclosed ground, General Burrows succeeded in extricating infantry and brought them into line of retreat. Unfortunately no effort would turn fugitives from main road, waterless at this season. Thus majority casualties appear to have occurred from thirst and exhaustion. Enemy's pursuit continued to ten miles from Candahar, but was not vigorous. Cavalry, artillery, and a few infantry reached banks of Argandab, forty miles from scene of action, at 7 a.m., many not having tasted water since previous morning. Nearly all ammunition lost, with 400 Martini, 700 Sniders, and 2 nine-pounder guns. Estimated loss, killed, and missing: 66th, 400; Grenadiers, 350; Jacob's Rifles, 350; artillery, 40; sappers, 21; cavalry, 60… Preparations being now made for siege…

Extract from General Burrows's Report on the Action (p. 101)

… Between two and three o'clock the fire of the enemy's guns slackened, and swarms of Ghazis advanced rapidly towards our centre. Up to this time the casualties among the infantry had not been heavy, and as the men were firing steadily, and the guns were sweeping the ground with case shot, I felt confident as to the result. But our fire failed to check the Ghazis; they came on in overwhelming numbers, and, making good their rush, they seized the two most advanced horse artillery guns. With the exception of two companies of Jacob's Rifles, which had caused me great anxiety by their unsteadiness early in the day, the conduct of the troops had been splendid up to this point; but now, at the critical moment, when a firm resistance might have achieved a victory, the infantry gave way, and, commencing from the left, rolled up, like a wave, to the right. After vainly endeavouring to rally them, I went for the cavalry… The 3rd Light Cavalry and the 3rd Sind Horse were retiring slowly on our left, and I called upon them to charge across our front and so give the infantry an opportunity of reforming; but the terrible artillery fire to which they had been exposed, and from which they had suffered so severely, had so shaken them that General Nuttall was unable to give effect to my order. All was now over…

Extract from Report by Lieutenant-General Primrose, Commanding 1st Division Southern Afghanistan Field Force (p. 156)

I would most respectfully wish to bring to the Commander-in-Chief's notice the gallant and determined stand made by the officers and men of the 66th Regiment at Maiwand… 10 officers and 275 non-commissioned officers and men were killed, and 2 officers and 30 non-commissioned officers and men wounded. These officers and men nearly all fell fighting desperately for the honour of their Queen and country. I have it on the authority of a Colonel of Artillery of Ayub Khan's army that a party of the 66th Regiment, which he estimated at one hundred officers and men, made a most determined stand in a garden. They were surrounded by the whole Afghan Army, and fought on until only eleven men were left, inflicting enormous loss upon the enemy. These eleven charged out of the garden, and died with their faces to the foe, fighting to the death. Such was the nature of their charge and the grandeur of their bearing that, although the whole of the Ghazis were assembled around them, not one dared approach to cut them down. Thus standing in the open, back to back, firing steadily and truly, every shot telling, surrounded by thousands, these eleven officers and men died; and it was not until the last man had been shot down that the Ghazis dared advance upon them.

THE BRADLAUGH CASE (1880)

Source.—The Times, June 25

We may regard the episode of Tuesday's resolution, and its natural sequence in the imprisonment of Mr. Bradlaugh for defying the authority of the House, as now at an end… We regret unfeignedly, as we have all along done, that Mr. Bradlaugh was not permitted to make affirmation, instead of taking an oath, when he first asked to be allowed to do so… But opportunity of creating a precedent consonant with reason and common sense has been let slip, and in default of a reasonable precedent the only manly course now seems to be to supply its place by fresh legislation. If the personal question of Mr. Bradlaugh and his very unsavoury opinions can once be got out of the way, there are probably very few members of the House of Commons, and very few sensible Englishmen, however strong their religious opinions, who would not acknowledge the anomaly, the inexpediency, and the injustice of making the Parliamentary oath of allegiance more stringent and more exclusive than the existing statutory provisions for securing truth of testimony and uprightness of conduct.

SOCIAL AMELIORATIONS (1880)

Employers' Liability

Source.—The Times, July 3

The fact is that considerations of risk are not uniformly present to servants when they are hired, and that the miner or railway guard generally contracts on the assumption in his own mind that he will be lucky, and will not be injured. The impulse to such Bills as Mr. Brassey's, Earl De La Warr's, and the measure introduced by the Government, is the inability of many people to see any good reason why, if a master is liable for the acts of his servant towards a stranger, he should be irresponsible when someone, fully clothed with his authority, and acting with all his power to enforce obedience, injures a so-called fellow-servant, who, perhaps, did not know of the existence of this vice-principal, and who never, in fact, consented to endure without complaint what might befall him by reason of the negligence of the latter. Perhaps in theory it is entirely wrong to make a master in any case liable for the acts of his servants. It is hard to give any good reason for this portion of our common law. Perhaps this species of responsibility, when historically examined, will be proved to be a shoot from the Roman law of master and slave, which has been unintelligently grafted on a law governing the relations of men who are free. It matters not, however, how employers came to incur their present liability to strangers for the acts of their workmen. The question is whether it is right or worth while retaining an exception to the general law of master and servant. The question has become one, not of principle, but of details… The Government Bill starts from the principle that workmen may claim redress when they are injured in consequence of defective works or machinery, or of the negligence of any person in the service of the employer, who has superintendence entrusted to him… It will be highly expedient to endeavour to express more clearly a law which must annually be set in motion in hundreds of cases.

Funded Municipal Debt

Source.—The Times, September 2

A subject of great interest was discussed at yesterday's meeting of the Liverpool City Council. In seconding a recommendation of the Finance Committee that the settlement of the prospectus and terms of issue of the first £2,000,000 of stock to be created under the Liverpool Loans Act be referred to that Committee, Alderman A. B. Forwood explained that the Bill had now passed both Houses… It had been a very difficult and intricate matter to get the Bill through, because the Liverpool Corporation were the first in the kingdom to obtain powers to fund their debt in the way proposed. He believed that, when the new water scheme was passed, the new mode of raising money would materially reduce the cost of money to the town, and would effect the saving of £25,000 to £30,000 a year. The stock would be put in exactly the same position as Consols.

Electric Light, The Telephone, New Hotels

Source.—The Times

January 5.– The last American mail has brought us interesting details relating to the progress made in manipulating the electric light. Pending the researches in which Professor Edison has for a long time been engaged, it appears that his laboratory at Menlo Park was practically closed to all strangers, until the young scientist should have arrived at a point to enable him to declare that complete success had attended his final efforts. That point has apparently been reached… The steadiness, reliability, and non-fusibility of the carbon filament, Mr. Edison tells us, are not the only elements incident to the new discovery. There is likewise obtained an element of proper and uniform resistance to the passage of the electric current.

April 10.– Several chambers in the Temple will shortly possess the advantage of having communication by telephone with the Law Courts at Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. The telephonic apparatus is at present being laid down between the Temple Gardens and Westminster Hall, the Metropolitan District Railway being utilized for the purpose. The apparatus, after having been connected with several of the chambers and offices in the Temple, enters the underground railway line, which it is carried along, immediately under the crown of the railway arch.

May 31.– That the Lord Mayor should in his official capacity have lent his presence to the opening of the Grand Hotel at Charing Cross, as he did on Saturday evening, implies that the new undertaking possesses a more than private character. So, in fact, it does. If it cannot be said altogether to open a new era in the history of hotels in this country, it makes at least a distinct advance in the character of English hotel accommodation… The distinctively English hotel is a dismal and cheerless place, where one feels cut off from all human sympathy. Of late years there has been a tendency in London to adopt Continental ways, but the improvement has seldom been carried much further than the establishment of a table d'hôte. The Grand Hotel is an ambitious attempt to rival the best European and American models.

PARNELL AND THE LAND LEAGUE (1880)

Source.—Freeman's Journal, September 9 (Report of a speech by Parnell at Ennis)

Depend upon it that the measure of the Land Bill of next session will be the measure of your activity and energy this winter; it will be the measure of your determination not to pay unjust rents; it will be the measure of your determination to keep a firm grip of your homesteads; it will be the measure of your determination not to bid for farms from which others have been evicted, and to use the strong force of public opinion to deter any unjust men among yourselves – and there are many such – from bidding for such farms. If you refuse to pay unjust rents, if you refuse to take farms from which others have been evicted, the Land Question must be settled, and settled in a way that will be satisfactory to you. It depends, therefore, upon yourselves, and not upon any Commission or any Government. When you have made this question ripe for settlement, then, and not till then, will it be settled… Now what are you to do to a tenant who bids for a farm from which another tenant has been evicted? [Several voices, "Shoot him!"] I think I heard somebody say, "Shoot him!" I wish to point out to you a very much better way – a more Christian and charitable way – which will give the lost man an opportunity of repenting. When a man takes a farm from which another has been unjustly evicted, you must show him on the roadside when you meet him, you must show him in the streets of the town, you must show him in the shop, you must show him in the fair-green and in the market-place, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him alone, by putting him into a moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of his country as if he were the leper of old – you must show him your detestation of the crime he has committed.

CAPTAIN BOYCOTT (1880)

Source.—The Times, November 10

Captain Boycott's case, from the time when attention was first drawn to it, has inspired general and increasing interest, which in the north of Ireland has taken the practical form of the relief expedition despatched yesterday to the shores of Lough Mask. It is well understood on both sides that the persecution of Captain Boycott is only a typical instance of the system by which the peasantry are attempting to carry into effect the instructions of the Land League. Into the merits of Captain Boycott's relations with the tenants on Lord Erne's estates it is quite unnecessary to enter. He has been beleaguered in his house near Ballinrobe; he is excluded from intercourse, not merely with the people around him, but with the neighbouring towns; his crops are perishing, because such is the organized intimidation in the district that no labourers would dare to be seen working in his fields. It is certain that any ordinary workman whom Captain Boycott might hire would be subjected to brutal violence, as indeed has already happened to servants and others who ventured even to fetch his letters for him from the nearest post-office.

THE BOER RISING (1880)

Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Transvaal," C 2,838 of 1881, p. 10To the Administrator of the Transvaal

Excellency,

In the name of the people of the South African Republic we come to you to fulfil an earnest but unavoidable duty. We have the honour to send you a copy of the Proclamation promulgated by the Government and Volksraad, and universally published. The wish of the people is clearly to be seen therefrom, and requires no explanation from us. We declare in the most solemn manner that we have no desire to spill blood, and that from our side we do not wish war. It lies in your hands to force us to appeal to arms in self-defence. Should it come so far, which may God prevent, we will do so with the utmost reverence for Her Majesty the Queen of England and her flag. Should it come so far, we will defend ourselves with a knowledge that we are fighting for the honour of Her Majesty, for we fight for the sanctity of treaties sworn by Her, but broken by Her officers. However, the time for complaint is past, and we wish now alone from your Excellency co-operation for an amicable solution of the question on which we differ… In 1877 our then Government gave up the keys of the Government offices without bloodshed. We trust that your Excellency, as representative of the noble British nation, will not less nobly and in the same way place our Government in the position to assume the administration.

We have, etc.,

S. J. P. Kruger (Vice-President).

M. W. Pretorious.

P. J. Joubert.

(Triumvirate.)

J. P. Mare.

C. J. Joubert.

E. J. P. Jorissen.

W. Edward Bok (Acting State Secretary).

Heidelberg,

December 16, 1880.

Proclamation

Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Transvaal," C 2,838 of 1881, p. 11

In the name of the people of the South African Republic. With prayerful look to God we, S. J. P. Kruger, Vice-President, M. W. Pretorious, and P. J. Joubert, appointed by the Volksraad in its session of the 13th December, 1880, as the Triumvirate to carry on temporarily the supreme administration of the Republic, make known:

We thus give notice to everyone that on the 13th day of December of the year 1880 the Government has been re-established; the Volksraad has resumed its sitting…

And it is further generally made known that from this day the whole country is placed in a state of siege and under the stipulations of the War Ordinance…

BEFORE MAJUBA (1881)

Source.—The Times, January 17

We give this morning an account from our correspondent at Pretoria of the meeting held by the Boers last month for the purpose of protesting against the annexation of the Transvaal. The report of the proceedings leaves no doubt of the extent and nature of Boer disaffection… That the annexation of the Transvaal may have been necessary when the step was taken may be admitted without prejudice to the question whether its permanent occupation and administration by British authority is desirable or not. When Sir Theophilus Shepstone annexed the territory, the Government was disorganized, the Treasury was bankrupt, the Republican troops were hopelessly demoralized, and the whole district was threatened by two powerful native chiefs, the weaker of whom had proved his superiority to any force which the Boers could bring against him. Now Cetywayo and Secocoeni are captives, and the whole border is tranquil. We have done for the Boers what it is certain they could not have done for themselves, and we have placed the security of the South African Colonies beyond all reasonable fear. Hence it might be argued that the reasons which compelled the temporary annexation of the Transvaal are no longer applicable in favour of its permanent occupation. It may be argued that we cannot recede where we have once advanced; certainly we cannot, where we have good reason to believe that our security requires that we should maintain our hold. But when our presence is manifestly unwelcome, and when the question of the best mode of guarding our security in future is at least an open one, it would be a very contemptible piece of national vanity to refuse to recede, simply because we had once found it necessary to advance in very different circumstances.

AFTER MAJUBA

I

Source.—Parliamentary Papers, "Transvaal," C 2,998 of 1881Convention for the Settlement of the Transvaal Territory, signed at Pretoria, 1881

Preamble: Her Majesty's Commissioners for the settlement of the Transvaal Territory, duly appointed as such by a Commission passed under the Royal Sign Manual and Signet, bearing date the 5th of April, 1881, do hereby undertake and guarantee on behalf of Her Majesty that, from and after the 8th day of August, 1881, complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors, will be accorded to the inhabitants of the Transvaal upon the following terms and conditions, and subject to the following reservations and limitations.

II

Source.—The Times, August 5, 1881

England can now have no desire to intrude herself upon the Transvaal. The more completely its people can get on without interference of any kind, the better pleased we shall be… The occasion may come which will call for all the knowledge and discretion which our Government will have at its command. The Boers, if they are so disposed, may give trouble in a thousand ways. The question may be continually arising whether the point has yet been reached at which active interference is called for, or whether it may be the prudent and better course to let things be. The fact is that between England and the Transvaal there is no natural connection whatever. The bond which unites them is an artificial one, and though it is too early to anticipate the time at which it will be severed, we are sure that at no time will it be found strong enough to bear a violent strain. The strain may never come. The Convention, which has been entered upon in due form, and with all solemnity, may remain to all intents and purposes a dead letter as to the chief part of its provisions, and may thus pass quietly into the great limbo to which all monstrous political births must some day come. It will be by the fault of the Boers that we can be driven to put an active interpretation upon it. It contains terms which we cannot suffer to be disregarded.

RITUAL CONTROVERSY (1881)

Source.—The Times, January 12Extract from a Memorial to the Archbishop of Canterbury, signed by various Deans, Canons, etc

… The immediate need of our Church is, in our opinion, a tolerant recognition of divergent ritual practice; but we feel bound to submit to your Grace that our present troubles are likely to recur, unless the Courts by which ecclesiastical causes are decided in the first instance and on appeal can be so constructed as to secure the conscientious obedience of clergymen who believe the constitution of the Church of Christ to be of Divine appointment, and who protest against the State's encroachment upon Rights assured to the Church of England by solemn Acts of Parliament…