the extent of his personal influence, that he came into power with a majority in his favour of 13; that the result of the election petitions was to strike off on the balance eight members from the Ministerial side (making a difference on a division of 16 votes), and that nevertheless he retained power until his death in 1865, and handed on a majority in a new Parliament to Lord Russell, who succeeded him. 66 I do not propose to follow in any detail the proceedings of Parliament from 1860 to 1865. A Right Honourable friend of mine, who was more fond of making speeches than the House was of listening to them, described it as a damnable dining Parliament "; and so it was. Bores were not encouraged; count-outs were frequent. I had the pleasure of finding full employment for many weeks in each session, as chairman of Election Committees and of Committees on Private Bills,-work which I always found congenial to my taste, and which brought me into association with members in all quarters of the House, and so encouraged and kept up that feeling of fraternity which prevailed among us. The Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1860 proposed to repeal the paper duty, while it doubled the incometax. The bill for repeal of paper duty obtained a majority in the Commons of 53 on second reading, but of 9 only on third reading. In the Lords the bill was rejected by a majority of 89-Contents 104, Non - Contents 193-after an admirable speech by Lord Lyndhurst. There was much debate and discussion in the Commons about what Mr Gladstone characterised as a "gigantic innovation"; but "action was not taken by Lord Palmerston, and the matter rested for the year. The Reform Bill of 1860 was introduced on March 1"not a bad day," as Lord John drily observed the anniversary of the same day on which the famous Act of 1832 first saw the light. But the House at large showed little interest in the subject. The "steam was not on, and the noble lord appeared for that night in the character of "Languid Johnny" rather than of "Glorious John." Mr Disraeli said it was a very bad bill. He knew only two members who approved itLord John and Mr Bright. The second reading was moved on March 19. The debate was prolonged and inanimate, and adjourned over and over again; and the question was not put from the Chair until May 3, when the bill was read a second time without a division. 4 was fixed for Committee, and on June 7 a motion for adjournment was made, when the Government obtained a majority of 21 only-for adjournment 248, against 269. On June 11 Lord John Russell withdrew the bill. June Lord John Russell must have been mortified at the treatment which the bill experienced at the hands of the Government and the new House of Commons. It was not so much the hostility which it encountered as the languid indifference with which it was met, the Northern and Southern States scurvy treatment which it received, and the humiliation to which it was exposed. Over and over again efforts were made to count the House out. A dreary debate in a listless House was interrupted by some one calling attention to the fact that forty members were not present. The bell rang. At once the lobby became lively. Absentees rushed from the dining-room. "Only a count!" was the cry. Government Whips did their best to coax or coerce the Ministerialists to return. Some enjoyed the fun and remained outside. Some went so far as to obstruct the access to the door with a view of preventing members going in. Such proceedings were unusual and most discreditable, and more so as both sides were equally committed to some extension of the franchise and alteration of the Act of 1832. It remained for Mr Gladstone to rouse the popular feelings by his "flesh and blood" and "capable citizen arguments with which we became so familiar later; and it was seven years later before Lord John Russell could see his work done by other hands, and the principle of rating, to which Mr Disraeli gave some prominence in his speech in 1859, established as the basis of an extended suffrage, and the second Reform Act placed among the statutes of the realm as the work of a Tory Government. In 1861-62 the English Parliament, although watching with the utmost anxiety the great conflict between the in America, happily abstained from taking any steps to interfere with the neutrality which the Government had determined to observe. I attribute this judicious forbearance to the wisdom and prescience of Mr Disraeli. From the first, he had realised the magnitude of the struggle. His language was always the same, in public and in private: "This is a great nation: it is not going to be broken up." The tone of society and of the House at that day was, speaking generally, in favour of the South, and the Emperor of the French was believed to be ready to recognise them. A strong expression of opinion in the House of Commons to that effect, supported by the leader of the Opposition, might have had an influence on Lord Palmerston's Government. Lord John Russell had declared the struggle to be for empire on the one side and independence on the other. Mr Gladstone had said that Jefferson Davis had created an army and a navy, and had created a nation. Others, irresponsible people, on the Liberal side, had talked of the bubble having burst. But Mr Disraeli kept his own counsel, and did not encourage any action on the part of his friends. The recognition of the South would not probably have altered the ultimate issue, or prolonged the contest greatly; but it would have embittered the relations between this country and our brethren in the great republic on the other side of the Atlantic, and would have pre vented the growth of that cordial understanding now so happily prevailing, and, I hope, permanently established, between the United States and the United Kingdom, which promises such great results in time to come. I had some means of knowing Mr Disraeli's views, for he was staying with Lady Londonderry at Seaham in the autumn of 1861, between the first Federal rout at Bull Run and the Mason and Slidell affair. I was one of the party there. The Civil War in America was the subject of daily discussion, and many an attempt was made to obtain Mr Disraeli's opinion. On one occasion I recollect a question being put, which he answered in these playful words, "I can only reply in the words of Lord Palmerston to a question put by Lady 'I cannot see farther than my nose, and that is a very small one. over "PARIS, 23rd August 1862. "On Thursday I was off by a special train to Chalons, and was so lucky. There were only three carriages, all first-class, not half full. I found myself the fourth in a carriage, with an old man sixty, as he looked, a young man about twenty-one, and an intermediate man: they might have passed for grandfather, father, and son, but that No. 2 did not seem quite so free and familiar. After a time the young man talked English like a native. I found that he had visited the International Exhibition, and been everyThen the old man talked to me about where, and that he was somebody. some members of the House, &c., and I found I was among the Imperial family, and suspected that my friends were, as they proved to be, Prince Murat (the only son of the King of Naples, and first cousin of the Emperor), and, I suppose, his son. The Emperor's carriage met them at the terminus, and we parted. I had a brilliant day, an unclouded sky, bright, hot, scorching, dusty. Our train was punctual. I had to traverse the whole camp right athwart to reach the racecourse, the immediate object of attraction. It was a fast walk of fortyfive minutes. At one o'clock came the Imperial family, my friend of the railway-train in the post of honour on the Emperor's right. There were six races such as we have in England. I got a capital place, went everywhere, and saw everything The Emperor looks very well: he is getting fat, but he looks better than he did at Cher bourg four years ago. The Prince Imperial is a nice little boy, like his mother in complexion, but not otherwise like either parent. He was in full uniform with a cocked hat! The Emperor seems so fond of him. After the races I had more than four hours to go about the camp. I suppose there were about 30,000 men there; and the Emperor with the Prince Imperial is spending a week amongst the soldiers. The place was awfully crowded, every vehicle of every kind in requisition to bring all the country people and multitudes from Paris, Rheims, Chalons, &c. We got back all safe about 1.10. The line was necessarily very full, but things were shunted to let us pass. Eating and drinking were the great difficulty of the day, and I was not sorry about 10 o'clock at Epernay station to find champagne sold by the glass at the refreshment-room." During the session of 1865 all our thoughts were concentrated on the dissolution of the longest Parliament of the reign, and the great struggle which both sides were making to obtain a majority in the in 1859 was more serious; still, next Parliament. Independ- Lord Chandos was not a canently of the University contest, didate sufficiently strong to oust of which I make a special Mr Gladstone. In 1859 Mr mention hereafter, I was active- Gladstone accepted office under ly engaged in our Berkshire Lord Derby, as Lord High Comcontest, where we succeeded missioner to the Ionian Isles. in carrying the whole county, The writ was moved by the returning three Conservative Tory Whip, and Mr Gladstone members. Buckinghamshire took his seat on the Minisand Oxfordshire followed our terial side, upon re-election on example, so that the three the 8th of March. Three counties constituting the one months later another writ was diocese of Oxford sent up moved this time by the Liberal what Mr Disraeli called our Whip-on his becoming Lord nine Diocesan Members. Palmerston's Chancellor of the Exchequer. And instead of being, as might have been expected from his past career, the most Conservative element in the new Government, Mr Gladstone, it became evident, was the most advanced. His action in the House and his speeches out of doors showed that; and it was resolved to form a strong committee and to select a really strong candidate, in the conviction that if the constituency could be completely polled, it would be found that Mr Gladstone no longer was the real representative of the University of Oxford. This confidence was justified by the election of 1865. The year 1865 brings me to an event, in itself of great political moment, with which my thoughts and a great deal of my time had been occupied for over twelve months. In his representation of the University of Oxford, in Parliament, Mr Gladstone never was without opposition. The old Protectionists brought their candidates to the poll against him in 1847 and 1852. I was an active member of his committee on both those occasions. I did not vote in 1853. Many, like myself, between ceasing to be among his supporters and actively opposing him by their votes, took up an attitude of neutrality for a time. But from the moment of his entering the Palmerston Government, in 1859, a quiet but determined resolution filled the minds of many of us, both in Oxford and among old Oxonians in London, to turn Mr Gladstone out. The several assaults upon his seat, however, were singularly unsuccessful. That in 1853 was made by a candidate quite unknown in public life, and it failed completely. That The story of that election has never been fully told, and now that Lord Beauchamp (then the Hon. Fred. Lygon), Judge Cooke, and Professor Wall are dead, few, if any, save myself, among the active agents, are left to tell it. The first man we thought of as a candidate was Sotheron Estcourt, a son of Mr Bucknall Estcourt, who had been member for the University of Oxford from 1826 to 1847, and whom, indeed, Mr Gladstone had succeeded in Mr Sotheron the Rev. T. H. Sheppard, Exeter; the Rev. E. T. Turner, Brasenose; Rev. George Petch, Trinity; and the Rev. H. R. Bramley, Magdalen. And at 42 Wimpole Street, W., to the London Committee, of which I was the chairman, Ward Hunt, M.P., and Stephen Cave, M.P., were vice-chairmen, and Hon, Wm. Brodrick, now Viscount Midleton (Balliol), J. G. Darby (Ch. Ch.), A. Stavely Hill, D.C.L. (St John's), and Granville R. Ryder (Ch. Ch.), members. Several hundreds of names were added to this declaration; but when Parliament met in 1865 Mr Hardy still declined to allow his name to be mentioned as a candidate. After Easter, committee rooms were engaged in Great George Street, Westminster, where we worked hard daily up to the conclusion of the poll. the latter year. Accordingly, a declaration, declaration, signed by over 150 members of Convocation, expressing their intention to support Mr Hardy as a candidate for the University in opposition to Mr Gladstone, was widely circulated throughout the autumn and winter. Communications, it may be interesting to recall, were to be addressed to any of the following: at Oxford, to the Rev. the President of St John's; the Rev. R. Michell, St Giles; the Rev. Professor Wall, Balliol; the Rev. Professor Mansel, St John's; We had now reason to hope that Mr Hardy would not be unwilling to sit if he were elected. But he had not in any real sense declared himself a candidate. He still was a candidate for Leominster, for which, as a matter of fact, he was re-elected after a contest as well as for the University. His exact position may best be described in his own words : |