THE OLD PARTIES AND THE NEW DEMOCRACY,
When we review these 15 years of English History, the salient points that catch the eye are on the one hand Irish obstruction, Gordon at Khartoum, the first Home Rule Bill and the split in the Liberal party, the Parnell Commission and Divorce, the par titioning of Africa, the second Home Rule bill and the retirement of "the Grand Old Man"; and on the other hand, distress and unemployment, the rise of socialism, the Dock Strike, the "new unionism," the Independent Labour Party. The notable fact is that these two sets of events seem to be entirely unrelated to one another. Parliamentary politics were not concerned with the English people, and the English people impinged but slightly on parliamentary politics. Of course a detailed survey would note many exceptions to this sweeping generalisation, but the im pression it conveys is in the main correct, even though a Reform Bill of 1884 proclaimed a fully democratised male electorate. How is this to be explained? Partly by the characters of the leading statesmen. Gladstone, the Liberal leader, was a survivor from a past generation ; his return to politics had been provoked by the wrongs of foreign peoples, and his interest throughout his last phase was absorbed by the wrongs of the Irish. On the Con servative side, Disraeli, who ever since he wrote Sybil in the 'forties had realized that the problem of "the two nations" was the dominating problem of England, was succeeded by Lord Salis bury, a man of massive intelligence and little imagination, whose main interest was foreign policy. Two statesmen there were, of great energy and ability, who might in combination have diverted English politics to English problems, Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Randolph Churchill. But Chamberlain called himself a Liberal and Churchill called himself a Conservative. Moreover, Chamberlain left the Liberals in 1886 and did not join the Con servatives till 1895, and Churchill quarrelled with his party and reduced himself to impotence in 1886. Thus the situation was unpropitious on the parliamentary side. At the same time the English people must share the blame, if blame it be. They had not yet learnt to formulate their aspirations in a practicable shape, nor to use the parliamentary machine which the second and third Reform bills had placed at their mercy.
Gladstone, reluctantly accepted as prime minister by the queen, took office (188o) with a mission to undo the evil wrought by Beaconsfield in Afghanistan, South Africa, and Egypt. In Afghanistan the problem of extrication, as it may be called, was satisfactorily solved. British claims were abandoned and the new Amir became a good friend of British India. To South Africa the Transvaal Boers were given back their independence, under British "suzerainty," but only after the hesitations of the home government and the impatience of the British commander in Natal had provoked hostilities and incurred the minute, unnecessary, and humiliating defeat of Ma j uba (i881). The Egyptian problem was much more com plicated, and extrication impossible. Egypt was a European, not merely
British, problem, and Gladstone's government, en meshed in a tangle of obligations, found themselves reluctantly enacting a policy they unfeignedly regretted. In 1881 an Egyp tian revolt under Arabi attempted to overthrow the Dual Con trol. France urged joint intervention, secured it, and then with drew from it. Wolseley defeated Arabi at Tel-el-Kebir (the last battle where British soldiers fought in red coats), and the way was opened for Lord Cromer's 24 years' rule
which did more for the material welfare of Egypt than all the Pharaohs and Ptolemies of past ages. But while Egypt under Arabi was revolting against the Dual Control, the Sudan under the Mandi was revolting, much more successfully, against the tyranny of Egypt. An Egyptian army was utterly destroyed at El Obeid in 1883. Gladstone's government determined that the Sudan must be abandoned, and sent out General Gordon to report on the situation and to extricate the Egyptian garrisons at Khartoum and elsewhere. Gordon was besieged in Khartoum (1884), and the relief expedition failed to arrive in time to save him. Gladstone was denounced as the "murderer of Gordon"; Gladstone's supporters, on the other hand, held that Gordon, by disregarding his instructions, had created the situation that led to his death. (See SOUTH AFRICA, UNION OF TRANSVAAL; SOUTH AFRICAN WAR; EGYPT; SUDAN.) Meanwhile Ireland had been occupying all too much attention. Parnell, who hated England as only an Irishman has a right to hate her, used his Nationalist party in the House of Commons to obstruct business by endless and irrelevant oratory : hence the strict rules of "closure" which since that date have governed debate. At the same time he secured control of the Land League, a kind of "trade union" of Irish tenant farmers, and thus ma nipulated the forces of agrarian disorder and boycott in Ireland. A Land Act (1881) gave the tenants their "three Fs" (fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale), but Parnell was determined to use his organization to force Home Rule. His arrest and im prisonment only made matters worse. In 1882 the Irish Secre tary (Lord Frederick Cavendish) and the permanent under secretary were murdered in Phoenix Park.
The record of the government was by no means barren of domestic legislation. A popular Ground Game act enabled all occupiers of land (and not only landlords) to shoot hares and rabbits. Chamberlain's first Employers Lia bility .act made employers liable, within certain limits (since abolished), for accidents to their work-people. The Married Women's Property act gave a wife the same rights of acquiring, holding, and bequeathing property as a widow or spinster, i.e., she was no longer at the financial mercy of her husband. The third Reform bill (1885) roughly doubled the electorate, abol ished the age-long distinction between the county and borough franchises, and gave to the wage-earner outside the boroughs the vote enjoyed since 1867 by his fellow within them. Mention should also be made of the Bradlaugh controversy. The atheist M.P., Charles Bradlaugh, demanded the right to "affirm" his loyalty without a religious oath. Gladstone supported, and there fore not only bigots but also Conservatives opposed, his demand, and the inevitable (though long delayed) upshot of the con troversy was the extension to atheists of the rights already extended to Roman Catholics (1829) and Jews (1858).
Gladstone's government was defeated on a clause of its Budget and resigned in June 1885, and the "Caretakers" (Salisbury) government took office till the new registers were ready for a general election. The election when it came (Dec. 1885) gave the liberals a majority of 8o over the conservatives, thanks in part, no doubt, to Chamber lain's "unauthorized" (i.e.. non-Gladstonian) programme of re forms, including the famous "three acres and a cow" to catch the new rural voter. More significant was the Irish result, where Parnell had secured every seat but one outside Ulster. Glad stone now declared for Home Rule ; the conservatives resigned, and Gladstone introduced his first Home Rule bill (1886) ; but 93 "Liberal Unionists," among whom was Chamberlain, united with the conservatives in defeating the measure. Gladstone appealed to the country and was decisively defeated.
Lord Salisbury's (1886-92) government was, by comparison with what went before, a time of political tran quillity. Ireland was restive, but the Nationalist party was crip pled by the growing eccentricity of Parnell, culminating in his divorce case and the consequent divisions among his colleagues. In 1888 the modern County Councils were established and took over most of the work hitherto discharged by nominated magis trates; among the "counties" not the least important was a new one, the County of London. In the sphere of foreign policy an immensely important transaction, the partitioning of tropical Africa among the Great Powers, was carried through with less friction than might have been expected (see AFRICA : History) . The navy was thoroughly overhauled and the "two-power stand ard" explicitly established—the two powers whose combined navies were envisaged being France and Russia, for Germany as yet had no navy of importance.
The election of 1892 enabled Gladstone to return to office at the unprecedented age of 82, but his majority depended upon the Irish Nationalist vote, and the House of Lords, in rejecting his second Home Rule bill (1893), could claim that they had the support of the majority of the members elected for British constituencies. Gladstone retired in 1894, and the one-year Prime Ministership of Lord Rosebery is notable for Harcourt's Budget, which revised and increased the "Death Duties," apply ing to them the principle of "graduation," since applied also to the income-tax. Perhaps it is also notable for the fact that Lord Rosebery won the Derby. The election of 1895 restored the Conservatives to power.
The industrial depression which began in the 'seventies continued until 1888, and London became uncomfortably familiar with processions of the unem ployed; e.g., the Trafalgar Square disturbance of Jan. 1886, when august windows were broken in Pall Mall. Meanwhile a new proletariat with the habit of reading was growing up. Vic torian politics had failed to solve the problems of poverty, and the socialism of Karl Marx seemed to offer an alluringly drastic remedy. Hyndman founded the Social Democratic Federation which adopted a programme of doctrinaire socialism (1883), and William Morris, aspiring to restore true craftsmanship and to rescue the workman from the tyranny of the machine, lent his powerful aid to the socialist movement. How appalling the facts of poverty were was demonstrated by Charles Booth, who undertook at his own expense a statistical survey of London and found 30% of the population to be living below "the pov erty line." His conclusions were brought home to a wider public by the publications of General Booth, the founder of the Sal vation Army.
Trade Unionism had also become more and more "aristo cratic" (i.e., limited to skilled craft unions) since the 'seventies, for the simple reason that the depression practically extinguished the unions of the worse-paid types of worker. The Trade Union Congress was scarcely more in touch with real poverty than the House of Commons. But there was a minority of trade union ists dissatisfied with this position, among them the engineer, John Burns, and these found their opportunity in the great Dock Strike of 1889. Led by Tillett, Burns, and Mann, practically the whole of the Thames riverside labour came out on strike for "the docker's tanner." Widespread sympathy was expressed, large subscriptions were raised, and the aged Cardinal Manning played a spectacular part in securing the dockers' victory. The result was a great ex tension of trade unionism among the unskilled and hitherto un organized workers. Both trade unionism and socialism were pow erfully affected. Trade unionism became democratic, and the main stream of socialistic energy was diverted from revolutionary idealism into the practical work of organizing and fighting the industrial battle on industrial and political lines.
A Labour party independent of liberals and conservatives was the natural conclusion of the tendencies just indicated. In 1887 Keir Hardie, a Scottish miner and socialist, had urged the Trades Union Congress to found such a party, but in vain. Undis couraged, he founded it himself and was elected for West Ham in 1892. This was the origin of the "Independent Labour Party." All its candidates were defeated in 1895, but (to complete the story here) the Trade Union Congress was being slowly stirred to action. In 1899 a joint committee of the T.U.C., the I.L.P., and two socialist societies was established under the title of the Labour Representation Committee. This was in fact the founda tion of the Labour party, and its first secretary was Ramsay MacDonald.
Victorian industrial history reads like a prologue to the loth century, whereas the culture of the Victorian upper classes has already become something remote and, as we say, "Victorian." In the sphere of letters the last 20 years of the century mark the long evening of the Victorian age. One by one the great lights were extinguished—Carlyle, George Eliot, Rossetti, Darwin, Matthew Arnold, Browning, Tennyson, Newman, Morris, Ruskin. No stars of equal magnitude seemed left in the sky. Of these great Victorians only William Morris was in his prime during the 'eighties. Himself a craftsman in many trades, he taught that not only churches but houses, not only pictures but wall papers, books and furniture, pots and pans should be works of art. His influence has been immense, but he came too late to redeem the age he lived in. Fashions change, but it is hard to believe that a generation will ever arise that will admire Vic torian domestic architecture. The art of building touched its nadir just at the time when building was more in demand than ever before, owing to the unprecedented growth of population.
