decayed and rotten, only needing to be touched to fall to pieces; people long subject to bad and insulting rule, manifesting a moderation and a wisdom unlooked for; and a leader, but the other day without money, or men, or power of any kind, becoming the Dictator and Arbiter of the fate of millions. The whole thing is very strange-I rejoice that so little blood is spent-but I am not without fear as to the result. Heretofore the "royalties" of Europe have not permitted changes of this kind to be perfected, and I am doubting now if they will not, at some point, unite and suppress that which must be to the majority of them a matter of dread. I think the Emperor of the French has behaved with great moderation and much wisdom since Villafranca.' (Oct. 10.) I observe your remarks about the ironcased ships. We have built sailing ships-then steamers -then gun boats-and now I suppose we are to spend some millions on ships in armour. I see no end to it. The greatest mechanical intellects of our time are absorbed in the question how to complete instruments of defence and destruction, and there seems no limit to their discoveries or projects, so long as France and England shall lead in great armaments, and in the attempt to dominate over the world. What a glorious isolation is that of the United States. Until we adopt their principle, I see no security for peace for us or for Europe-for until then, every disturbance in Europe is made the pretext for a greater expenditure here, and we are constantly in a state of preparation to plunge into the chaos of any Continental entanglement.' In January 1861 he wrote to Mr. Gladstone: 'Some members have insisted upon it that no good will be done till some arrangement is made with France as to naval armaments. This might easily be done if the difficulty on this side the Channel were no greater than that on the other side. I am convinced that Mr. Cobden could arrange the whole matter with the Emperor in one tenth of the time he spent on the Commercial Treaty, if he knew he would be heartily and honestly supported by the English Court and Government. . . . Only this year, what has been done? The Treaty and the abolition of Passportsand Mr. Cobden now tells me he has obtained the consent of the French Post Office to an increase in the weight of 1861] LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS 293 letters passing through the French post, and he has written to Rowland Hill to urge him at once to have the arrangement concluded. More, much more may be done. I believe there has never before, in any time, been a Government in France more willing to act honorably and amicably with England, and that anything we can reasonably ask will be conceded. At least 15 millions a year might be saved to the two countries at once by such an arrangement as I speak of, besides the increasing peril of war from these frightful preparations, and this incessant military excitement.' The suggestion for a limitation of armaments by mutual agreement was no mere Quaker fantasy. Six months after Bright had written this letter (July 26), Disraeli spoke in the House in favour of a reduction of naval expenditure by an understanding with France as to the relative size of the two navies. Disraeli said that the wish for such an understanding had been candidly expressed' by France. And indeed as early as January 1849 Napoleon, when President of the French Republic, had offered to make almost any reduction we might suggest in naval armaments, provided we reduced our own in somewhat the same proportion. Lord Palmerston had declined the offer.1 In February 1861 Lord John Russell threw over Parliamentary Reform, in spite of the hopes that he had held out to Bright in his letter of June 15, 1859.2 Since Palmerston would not have allowed any real extension of the suffrage to the working classes, it was perhaps as well that the question should be altogether laid aside in Parliament, till Bright's agitation in the country had become irresistible, and till Gladstone stood in Palmerston's place. A bad Reform Bill might have been worse than none. (Bright's Journal. Feb. 5, 1861.) 'Lord John Russell threw over the Reform question in a speech of offensive tone and language. I replied, and spoke on the general question. I had great difficulty in restraining my indignation at his conduct. I shall keep no terms with this Government for the future. It is base, 1 This appears clearly in the F.O. papers, as has been pointed out to me by Rev. F. A. Simpson of Trinity College, Cambridge, author of the Rise of Louis Napoleon. See p. 282 above. as was the former Government of Lord Palmerston. How long Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Gibson will go through the mire with them I know not.' For the next four years the pleasant personal intercourse that had existed between Russell and Bright was broken off. Bright thought that Lord John had not behaved well about Reform, and avoided his company without being positively rude. There is no evidence that Lord John noticed the change.1 Yet even now Bright's political sagacity, which in spite of his fiery indignations was seldom at fault, prompted him not to overturn the Government unless and until it failed to settle the Paper Duty question and re-establish the Commons' control over finance. He writes to Cobden: 'I have not seen Gibson since his friend and patron threw over the Reform cause. He may expect Gladstone to repeal the Paper Duty. If he does, I can understand his sticking to the ship.' And in fact Gladstone had bethought him of a plan. He put together all his financial proposals for the year 1861 into one Bill, which the Lords must either accept or reject as a whole. They had not claimed the right to amend money Bills, and they must now either throw out the whole Budget or accept the repeal of the Paper Duties. On April 15 Gladstone wrote to Bright a letter marked very private': 'It is our intention to adopt a mode of procedure in regard to financial matters this year, which, among other advantages, will materially tend to prevent a recurrence by the Lords to the great operation of 1860. But I most earnestly hope that nothing will be said to-day which can put upon it an invidious construction. I would indeed hope more than this; namely, that, if we do what is right and effectual, we should all through say the very least possible about it. All, however, that I venture to ask for to-day is that you will use your influence, or if need be give an example, in favour of treating this part of the subject to-day with an absolute forbearance.' So, at Gladstone's request, the great triumph was not hailed by Bright and the Radicals with any provocative demonstra 1 Bright's journal, March 2, 1864: Received this morning invitation from Lord Russell to dinner for the 12th. Since his abandonment of the cause of Reform have not had any intercourse with him, and since his acceptance of a Peerage have not ever seen him except once or twice in the House of Lords. Another engagement for the 12th to dine with Mr. Everest will prevent my dining with him.' In 1866 Bright dined with Russell, who was bitterly attacked by London Society for receiving the demagogue at his house. 1861] GLADSTONE DEFEATS THE LORDS 295 tions of joy. But they had reason for profound satisfaction. Gladstone's stroke opened out the paths to a better future. The Lords' control over finance was gone for ever, unless they should some day be mad enough to throw out the whole Budget L of the year; cheap paper was obtained, ensuring an epoch of cheap books and cheap journals; and a 'statesman' of mature age had most miraculously blossomed out into a Radical hero -a man crafty, resolute, eloquent, capacious of mind, and prepared to devote his long experience of great affairs and his unrivalled genius to no cause save that of the people. CHAPTER XIV THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 'Whereas one Alfred Rubery was convicted on or about the twelfth day of October 1863, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of California, of engaging in, and giving aid and comfort to the existing rebellion against the Government of this country, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of ten thousand dollars; And whereas, the said Alfred Rubery is of the immature age of twenty years, and of highly respectable parentage; 'And whereas, the said Alfred Rubery is a subject of Great Britain, and his pardon is desired by John Bright, of England; 'Now therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, these and divers other considerations me thereunto moving, and especially as a public mark of the esteem held by the United States of America for the high character and steady friendship of the said John Bright, do hereby grant a pardon to the said Alfred Rubery, the same to begin and take effect on the twentieth day of January 1864, on condition that he leave the country within thirty days from and after that date.'1 DURING the most fateful years of the nineteenth century, when no one knew from month to month whether England would not lend her aid to the secession of the slave-owners from President Lincoln's Government, the nicely balanced scales were turned in favour of peace, not by the action of a political party, but by the efforts of individual men-Prince Albert, the Duke of Argyll, Forster, Goldwin Smith, Mill, Cobden, and Leslie Stephen, among whom John Bright was in this struggle the first and the foremost. When the statesmen,' the Parliament, and the press of oligarchic England made the country appear favourable to the South, Bright and his friends roused the unenfranchised masses to proclaim their sympathy with freedom across the Atlantic, and so prevented by a hair's 6 1 Rubery had been engaged in a plot to seize a vessel in San Francisco for the purpose of going out as a pirate or privateer on behalf of Jefferson Davis. The judge who tried him and the two Senators for California reported that there was great indignation at the crime, but that the people would be satisfied with the pardon if granted at the request of Mr. Bright, who is a true friend of their country.' |