Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 3 of 4.—1874-1892

Charles L. Graves

Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 3 (of 4).—1874-1892

PART I

THE NATIONAL OUTLOOK

HIGH POLITICS

The pageant of the Victorian age reached its grand climacteric in the period on which we now enter. As a "drum and trumpet chronicle" the history of the eighteen years from 1874 to 1892 was void of any British military operations on the grand scale. Of the names Kandahar, Maiwand, Isandhlwana, Majuba, Khartoum and Tel-el-Kebir only the first and last minister to our complacency. Yet the achievements of Lord Roberts in the two Afghan campaigns were splendid examples of bold leadership and British endurance, and Lord Wolseley's suppression of the revolt of Arabi was more than efficient. In the mid 'seventies Germany came perilously near forcing a fresh war on France; but the influence of the British Crown and Government was largely instrumental in averting the calamity. We were twice on the verge of war with Russia in 1878, first in April after the Treaty of San Stefano at the close of the Russo-Turkish war, and second in July over Russia's intervention in Afghanistan. The country was divided, for while there had been a revival of the old distrust of Russia, Gladstone had thrown the whole weight of his influence into the campaign of protest against the "Bulgarian atrocities." The Government, on the whole, steered a middle course between the "Jingoes" and those who supported Gladstone's "bag and baggage" policy towards the Turks. At the height of the Tory Press campaign against Russia, Lord Salisbury, in a speech in the City, observed: "It has been generally acknowledged to be madness to go to war for an idea, but it is yet more unsatisfactory to go to war against a nightmare." Punch, who was never pro-Russian, but at the moment was strongly anti-Turk, interpreted this saying as a caution against Jingo scaremongering.

In one of the earliest of his cartoons on the possibility of war over the Eastern question, he represented Disraeli standing on the edge of a precipice with Britannia, asking her to move "just a leetle nearer." Britannia declines to move one inch farther, adding, "I'm a good deal nearer than is pleasant already." But four months later, in May, 1878, when he showed Britannia between two advisers, Disraeli and Bright1– the former wearing a sword camouflaged with an olive wreath —Punch supported neither, but applauded the third Voice, that of Neutrality. Professorial intervention he resented strongly; and severely rebuked Freeman, the historian, for a violent and unpatriotic speech. In fine, he was equally down on the blatant bunkum of the music-halls and the ill-considered agitation of fussy Pacificists; on War-Donkeys and Peace-Donkeys; "Asses are asses, whether bound in Lion or in Calf."

But if in Europe Great Britain never got beyond the stage of naval demonstrations and the summoning of troops from India, these eighteen years were not devoid of great as well as spectacular events. They opened with the triumphant return to power of Disraeli, admirably symbolized in Tenniel's great cartoon of the chariot driver and his fallen rival, and with his efforts to translate into practical politics his grandiose doctrines of Imperialism. He made the Queen Empress of India, he riveted our hold on the Suez Canal by the opportune purchase of the Khedive's shares in 1875; he claimed to have brought back "Peace with Honour" from the Berlin Congress of 1878, the year which marked the zenith of his power and the beginning of its decline. The twelve years that followed Gladstone's success at the polls in 1880 were crowded with momentous events; the rise and ferment of the new nationalities abroad; the advent of new champions and gladiators in the political arena at home – Parnell and Randolph Churchill and Chamberlain. In the sphere of domestic politics Ireland dominated the scene. Parliamentary obstruction was raised to a high art; the activities of the physical force extremists culminated in the tragedy of the Phœnix Park murders, and the history of the next few years is written in the two words Coercion and Conciliation, which split the Liberal Party, brought back the Conservatives to power in 1886, and under the Balfourian régime restored a certain measure of peace and prosperity to Ireland. Lord Beaconsfield's "spirited foreign policy" had been largely reversed under Gladstone, and the results did not nourish our national pride. The handling of our frontier troubles in India had at least the support of some of the wisest Anglo-Indian experts, but our magnanimity to the Boers after Majuba was not merely open to the charge of craven-spiritedness, it paved the way to further troubles. It has been said that "any fool can annex"; but it needs a wise man to know when to grant autonomy. Moreover, the loyalty of Gladstone's supporters – including Punch– was strained to the uttermost by the disastrous failure of the attempt to relieve Gordon at Khartoum. The full knowledge now available makes it clear that Gordon's appointment was a risky experiment – that his judgment was not equal to his nobility of character – but the months and months of procrastination and vacillation, and the inadequacy of the relieving force when dispatched, cannot be explained away. It was just one of those situations which warranted the old gibe against Gladstone's "three courses." There were moments, and this was one of the most searching, in which he was mentally incapable of "seeing his duty, a dead sure thing" and going for it "there and then" in the way in which plain men with plain minds would have done.

Wilful Wilhelm: "Take the nasty Punch away!I won't have any Punch to-day!"Young Wilhelm was a wilful lad,And lots of "cheek" young Wilhelm had.He deemed the world should hail with joyA smart and self-sufficient boy,And do as it by him was told;He was so wise, he was so bold.

When we add to this brief summary the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, the passing of Lord Beaconsfield and Bright among the elder statesmen, and the tragic eclipse of Parnell, it will be seen that there was enough and more than enough to engage the pen and pencil of Punch as a political and social chronicler. Mention has already been made of our thorny relations with Russia. With regard to Germany, the attitude of England might be described as one of reluctant admiration punctuated by moments of misgiving. These moments were not infrequent in the days of the old Emperor; they ceased during the brief reign of his son, only to recur in a more acute form when Kaiser Wilhelm II "dropped the pilot," made it clear that he intended not only to rule but govern, and by his meteoric versatility and frequent references to his divine mission and to the Germans as the chosen race, awakened the world to the emergence of a new and formidable promoter of European unrest. Our relations with France were correct rather than cordial; her rapprochement with Russia did not make for popularity on this side of the Channel; but in the main English observers read the inner meaning of the Boulanger episode aright, and without exactly exulting over his collapse, were relieved by his failure to revive a military dictatorship.

By way of filling in this rough outline with more detail, we may note that Gladstone's resignation of the Liberal leadership at the close of 1874 was regarded by Punch as premature. In one of the first cartoons in the next year Dizzy is shown saying good-bye to his great antagonist: "Sorry to lose you! I began with books; you're ending with them. Perhaps you're the wiser of the two." Perhaps he would have been – in the ultimate verdict of posterity – had his decision been final. But Punch was right in regarding Gladstone as an unspent force, and in his regretful and affectionate farewell clearly indicates a hope of his return: —

Will he who, from Llandudno's calm retreatLate burst, at once, on battle and defeat,Will he, though Harcourt gird, and Granville pray,Himself the Leader's truncheon fling away,Still in his prime of power, unbent by years,Renounce the joy of battle with his peers,Unmoved by Punch's counsel, or his prayer,Nor to his realm relinquished name an heir?

The New Shepherd

Lord Hartington, moved by public spirit rather than ambition or enthusiasm, undertook what in the circumstances was the far from enviable task of leading the Liberals. Punch hit off the situation truly enough in the cartoon in which Bright hands the crook of leadership to the "New Shepherd" – and Hartington in his smock-frock replies, "Hey, but Measter! – Where be the sheep?"

The parallel is followed up in the doggerel lines: —

The Marquis Bo-PeepHerds the Liberal Sheep —If he only knew where to find them.Will they ever come homeAnd – please Home Rule and Rome —Bring their Irish tails behind them?

Punch, always concerned with the dignity of the Mother of Parliaments, was from the very outset exasperated by the increasing levity and obstructiveness of the new House. The levity he satirized in a series of burlesque entertainments with Mr. Whalley as call-boy and Dr. Kenealy as gasman. Dr. Kenealy's efforts to re-open the Tichborne case ended in absurdity – his motion being supported by only two members, Mr. Whalley and Major O'Gorman, that gigantic playboy of the West.2 Obstruction, another and far more serious matter, was soon organized into a science, and led to repeated scenes of which more anon. Of the new Ministers, Mr. Ward Hunt, the First Lord, was especially singled out for attack because of his cavalier treatment of the loss of the Vanguard and the Admiralty's Fugitive Slave Circulars. A propos of the former, Punch represented Neptune warning Britannia that there would be a row if she did not rule the waves properly. The Fugitive Slave question led to protracted debates and much hostile criticism. In October, 1875, a cartoon shows a slave crawling on board a British warship and clinging to the flagstaff, while Ward Hunt, popping up from the companion, observes: "A runaway slave, John. You'll have to give him up, you know! See our Circular of July 31." John Bull retorts: "Give 'im up, yer Honour!! As well order me to haul down that there flag at once!!!" A fortnight later Ward Hunt is made to reply to his friend Punch: —

We haven't hauled down the British Flag(See one of your recent productions),But we've chosen the other alternative —We've hauled down our Mis-instructions.

Punch's view, expressed in comments on the debate in the following February, was that the matter should be left in the discretion of captains – as it had been for thirty-six years. He declared, not without reason, that both circulars were virtually dead, and that the country would not stand them. Meanwhile the growth of the German Navy, which in his earlier years Punch had persistently ridiculed and belittled, had begun to excite attention and misgiving; Punch, though a Liberal, was a "big Navy" man, and, early in 1875, was concerned with the dangers of our falling behind in the race of naval armaments: —

RULE, GERMANIA!

The Times informs us that, of "iron-clad cruisers of the strongest type, Germany will, in the present year, have seven built against five of our own navy." The Pall Mall Gazette is of opinion that "the Germans have too many irons in the political fire to give exclusive attention to any one of them."

But very soon, unless we get beforehand with the Germans, will they not have too many irons in the water, too?

Dizzy: "Bulgarian Atrocities! I can't find them in the Official Reports'!!!"

The restoration of the monarchy in Spain under Alfonso XII, in the same year, also gave Punch occasion for serious thought. We may pass over the cartoon representing John Bull's anxiety about Spanish bonds as a satire on British commercialism. But there is shrewd political insight in the picture of Alfonso between two fires – Bismarck and the Pope. The German Chancellor makes his support conditional on the withdrawal of the anti-Protestant edicts; while the Pope, on the other hand, maintains the claims of his Church.

In 1876 the Queen assumed the title of Empress of India; Disraeli went to the Lords as Earl of Beaconsfield, Sir Stafford Northcote succeeding him as Leader of the House of Commons; and the "Bulgarian Atrocities" proved the first phase in the conflict which made the Balkans the cockpit of Europe for over forty years. Punch did not cavil at Disraeli's earldom, though he thought his refusal of the Garter in 1878 well calculated rather than modest. He suggests, moreover, that Earl of Coningsby would have been a better title; and in the cartoon headed, "Empress and Earl, or One Good Turn deserves Another," shows Dizzy kneeling to the Queen and saying, "Thank your Majesty! I might have had it before! Now I think I have earned it!" More sympathetic are the verses in which Punch describes the realization of Disraeli's triple dream of success in Fashion, Letters and Politics – the dream that inspired him when he was only an articled clerk and a Jew boy: —

After forty years' fighting, he steps from the fireTo the height scarcely scaled in his Old Jewry dream;Adds a third to his two wreaths of boyish desire,Though sore set against him the stress of the stream.And all who can honour faith, patience, and powerAnd the strenuous purpose that runs a life throughLike a muscle of iron, are glad of the hourThat sees his hand close on the honour his due!

Mr. Gladstone was now employing his leisure by felling trees at Hawarden, and the contrast lent point to one of Tenniel's happiest cartoons – that of "The Earl and the Woodman"; Disraeli, in his earl's robes and coronet, contemplates Gladstone arrayed à la Watteau, and observes with emotion: "How happy is this blithe peasant, whilst I, alas! – " (Dissembles.) Punch, however, was becoming more sceptical of the genuineness of Gladstone's desire for retirement, and in a parody of "You are old, Father William," scouts the notion of his prematurely posing as a Nestor.

The British Lion: "Look here! I don't understand you! – But it's right you should understand me! I don't fight to uphold what's going on yonder!!"

The Balkan trouble led to a violent conflict of public opinion in which Punch sided whole-heartedly with Gladstone against those, and they were many, who upheld the traditional view of the "Gentlemen's party," that the Turk was the only "gentleman" in the Near East, and that he might do what he liked with his own. Disraeli's scepticism; his professed inability to find any "atrocities" in official reports; and his dismissal as "coffee-house babble" of evidence brought by a Bulgarian to a vice-Consul, roused Punch's indignation against the Premier and his official informants. It was a "hideous subject" of which Government had heard a good deal and was likely to hear a good deal more: —

Let Punch speak his mind in this matter. Political partisanship and party spirit are both at low, as well as lukewarm, water in England just now; but, if anything will fire John Bull's blood to fever heat, it is such horrors as have been perpetrated in Bulgaria – and part of his wrath will assuredly be visited on those who have striven to interpose official blinds or buffers between England and the sight or shock of these horrors… The head of Her Majesty's Opposition asserted for the Newspaper Correspondents the credit which English common sense and experience unite to claim for them.

Contemporary records – including the files of Punch– do not bear out the statement about the lukewarmness of party spirit. The country was acutely divided, and dissatisfaction with Sir H. Elliot, our Ambassador at Constantinople, prompted Punch's retort, when Lord Beaconsfield declared that the Bulgarian atrocities were "beyond recall," "Yes, but your Ambassador isn't." Gladstone is rebuked for hiding in his tent; but he made amends by launching his famous, though sadly premature, phrase about clearing the Turk out of Europe, "bag and baggage."

Neutrality under Difficulties

Serbia's resistance was soon overcome, but the Powers forced Turkey to grant her an armistice, and largely through Great Britain's influence, a Conference was held at Constantinople where Lord Salisbury was our representative. A short breathing-space was thus gained, but the Conference was abortive, and war between Russia and Turkey broke out in 1877. Punch was in rather a delicate position: for while distinctly anti-Turk, he had never trusted Russia. Thus, while assailing the Daily Telegraph, Pall Mall Gazette and Morning Post for their Chauvinism, and the Tory press generally for their campaign against Russia and their support of the "veracious Turk," he was hardly less severe in his strictures on the belligerent humanitarians who would have welcomed pro-Russian intervention. Punch advocated neutrality, but he was fully alive to the difficulties of the situation, and expressed them in a cartoon in which the British Lion is exhibited in a bothered mood, distrustful of Russia, and unable to make out what the Government meant, or the Opposition either. In his comments on the debate on Mr. Gladstone's resolution, Punch deplores the weakness and dissensions of the Opposition and supports the bolder spirits. Many years were to elapse before Lord Salisbury made his remarkable speech about our having "backed the wrong horse," i.e. Turkey, in the Crimean War. That speech proved that Punch was fully justified in seizing on the caution which the same speaker had given nearly twenty years earlier. For Lord Salisbury declared in 1897 that the defence of the diplomacy of 1878 lay in its traditional character, not in its inherent excellence, and that neither he nor Lord Beaconsfield was free from misgivings as to its results. The music halls have not often enriched the language with permanent additions, but they added "Jingo" and "Jingoism" in 1877. Punch's comment on Macdermott's famous song is instructive. It was inspired by a reference in the Paris Figaro: —

On the back page of the Figaro is given one verse in English, with the music, of that "War Song" of the Music Halls, which just now enjoys its share of popularity with "Nancy Lee," and "Jeremiah, Blow the Fire," and a translation of the whole song into French, of which the Figaro says apologetically, "Des vers français n'auraient pu arriver à la sauvage énergie de l'original." The chorus of the song, as sung by most of our London street-boys, instead of "They all do it," and "Woa Emma," recently shelved, is this: —

"We don't want to fight, but by Jingo if we do," etc. And the translation, which "n'aurait pu arriver à la sauvage énergie de l'original," is:

"Nous ne voulons pas la guerre, mais, par Dieu! si nous combattons," etc.

If "par Dieu!" is not to an Englishman's thinking rather more savagely energetic than "By Jingo!" then words are meaningless. If "par Dieu!" is to be accepted as an equivalent, and as, after all, rather a weak equivalent for "by Jingo!" then either the Frenchman has a very low idea of the Englishman's religion, or his "Dieu" means nothing more, ordinarily, than our "Jingo." But "Jingo" is not a savagely energetic exclamation, nor is the true feeling of this country to be gauged by the popularity of a Music-Hall song.

Punch was both right and wrong. The music halls are not a true index of the political sagacity of the country; but he did not foresee that the refrain of this particular song would survive, by virtue of its very blatancy, as a terse summary of national complacency. At the same time he paid homage to its merits by printing a neat Latin rendering from the pen of an Etonian: —

Inviti quamquam saevo confligere bello,Adsit opus, Jingo testamur Bellipotentem,Sunt nobis nummi, sunt agmina, tela, carinae.

Indian Troops in Europe

The intervention of amateur diplomatists, clerical or professorial, however well-meant, was firmly and impolitely discouraged when Turkey and Russia were at death grips at Plevna. Early in 1878 Punch endeavoured to turn such efforts into ridicule, as instances of "self-election of the unfittest." Still the naval demonstration in Besika Bay found Punch in his most pacific mood, applauding Lord Carnarvon, who with Lord Derby had resigned, and condemning Lord Beaconsfield's dangerous action and unconvincing explanations. The calling out of the Reserves still further increased Punch's anxiety, and inspired a "Proclamation" calling for self-restraint. When it was announced that Carlyle had joined Bright and the Duke of Westminster in signing a petition against war, Punch noted that the old sage of Chelsea was anything but a lover of peace at any price. But the incident which perturbed him and other critics of the Government more than anything else was the bringing of a contingent of Indian troops to Europe. Punch vigorously supported Gladstone, who held the action of the Government to be not merely provocative but unconstitutional. When the troops were re-shipped to India, he published a sarcastic inscription, to be engraved on a monument on Primrose Hill commemorating an exploit which had cost £750,000. It seems a little sum to us with our profligate habit of thinking in millions, but the frugal taxpayer of the 'seventies, as represented by Punch, thought it a monstrous extravagance. The inscription is too long to quote in its entirety, but we may give the peroration: —

So, having more than fulfilledThe Expectations of those who imported themAnd who, after having transferred them to Cyprus,Found themselves considerably embarrassedWhat next to do with them,They were re-shipped, quietly and unobtrusively,To the general mystification of EuropeFor the Land of their Birth;Whence,Though they have merited the Admiration of SomeAnd the Respect of Many,And have left behind themAn Election Cry to All,It is to be hoped that they will never again visitThe Western Dominions of their Imperial MistressWho, through the mouth of PunchGladly bids them Adieu!Not Au Revoir.

Heu vatum ignarae mentes! But Punch, who printed this acid jeu d'esprit on August 3, 1878, could hardly be expected to foresee the need of August 4, 1914.

The year 1878 marked the zenith of Lord Beaconsfield's prestige, for it was the year of the Berlin Congress – from which he claimed to have brought back "Peace with Honour" – and of the annexation of Cyprus. Punch, however, was always suspicious of Dizzy's phrases and preferred to symbolize the results of the Congress in a Pas de Deux by Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, both Gartered, and in a rhymed dialogue complacently referring to their egg-dance. The Afghan trouble was assuming a menacing aspect, finely typified in Charles Keene's cartoon, "The Shadow on the Hills." Punch applauded vigilance, but distrusted the Government's intentions, deprecated the spirited policy which involved "a vague and boundless adventure of annexation," and showed Lord Beaconsfield leading John Bull by the nose in search of a "scientific frontier" – another Disraelian phrase – and the Ameer of Afghanistan, between the Bear and the Lion, exclaiming, "Save me from my friends."

The Transvaal had been annexed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in the previous year, but Punch had received Lord Carnarvon's announcement with acquiescence rather than enthusiasm.

Bismarck's Creed

On the other hand, the visit of the Australian cricket team in 1878 furnished him with an occasion for paying tribute to the progress and enlightenment of the Colonies and acknowledging England's debt to their loyalty.

The services of King Edward as a promoter of the Entente with France date back to the same year, in which as Prince of Wales he is represented in a Pas de Trois with the Republic and Marshal MacMahon. Punch applauded the visit, but rebuked the flunkeyism of the accounts given by the Paris correspondent of The Times. For the moment Germany's home rather than her foreign policy engrossed attention, for this was the time of the Kulturkampf and the campaign against Socialism. Bismarck is shown in one cartoon squeezing down the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box. These repressive measures were deprecated by Punch, and a few months later he commented ironically on Bismarck's rapprochement with the Papacy, the cartoon "Of one mind (for once!)" showing Bismarck and the Pope barring the door against Socialism and Democracy. The reminiscences of the notorious Dr. Busch had appeared, and Punch based on them a bitter set of verses, "The Pious Chancellor's Creed," adapted from one of Lowell's Biglow Papers: —