THE War-Condition of England at the opening of the Year-The Money MarketUnpopularity abroad-Alarmists at home-Attitude of the Ministry-Agitation for Army Reform-The Licensing Bill-Contagious Diseases Acts-The Affair at Duclair-The Black Sea Conference-History of the Russian Note-IrelandMeath Election-The Land Act-Strength of the Ministry-Personal Unpopu. larity of Mr. Ayrton and others-Ministerial Changes-lhe Army Question before the Meeting of Parliament-Speech of Sir W. Mansfield-Letter of Earl Russell -Question of the Abolition of Purchase-The Small-Pox Epidemic-Opening of Parliament-The Queen's Speech-Debates on the Address in both HousesDebates on Foreign Affairs-Speeches of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, and others -Army and Navy Estimates-The Army Regulation Bill introduced by Mr. Cardwell-Mr. Trevelyan's Motion-The Ballot Bill-The Trades' Union BillIndian Budget-Princess Louise's Dowry.

THE War, and nothing but the War, occupied the hearts and minds of men at the beginning of the year 1871. From day to day we looked with absorbing interest for the thrilling narratives which day after day brought to us from the seat of war,-the wonderful romances of the "besieged resident," or "our own correspondents" at Versailles. Previous and contemporary transactions had been reduced, by the astonishing events of the second half of 1870, to real or apparent insignificance. Spectators of the great Continental drama had almost forgotten for the moment their own domestic affairs. At public meetings as in private society speakers, with the approval of the audience, habitually departed from the avowed purpose of the assemblage to the absorbing topic of the war, and publishers had almost suspended literary enterprise, because neither fiction nor former history was capable of competing with it. Though industrial and commercial activity, meanwhile, which had at last revived after a long depression extending over three or four years, was checked and disordered at first by the

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sudden closing of Continental workshops and markets, the condition of England was on the whole fairly prosperous at the opening of the year. The public revenue maintained its customary elasticity. The money and discount markets were in a very easy condition. Money was in far greater supply than demand; and rates which shortly before were quoted for three months' bills at 24 per cent. owing to requirements connected with balancings and adjustments at the end of the year, had receded to 2 to 2 per cent., and this before the disbursement of the public dividends, which commenced at the close of the first week of the year. One main cause of the abundance of supplies was clearly to be traced to the Continental war. Before it broke out Paris was every year becoming more and more a financial centre, where foreign loans were negotiated sometimes on terms more favourable to the borrowers than could be obtained in England or Germany. In this way various countries were gradually coming under tribute to the capitalists of France, and the interest upon such debts punctually found its way to Paris. Egypt, Turkey, and Spain were the chief, but not the sole contributories. Whilst the gates of Paris remained closed, money could be sent neither to nor from the besieged capital; and thus the dividend distributions on foreign loans that used to be made in Paris were at this time being made in London, with the necessary effect of increasing our immediate supplies. It was anticipated, also, that some years might elapse before such business returned to Paris.

The loudly-expressed sympathy for France, which made itself heard in too many quarters, was neither very logical nor very wise, in the case at least of the large number of people who had professed themselves partisans of the German cause at the outbreak of the war, and seemed to have been converted either by an irrational sympathy with the name of a republic, or an even less rational feeling that France had suffered enough. With her usual felicity in these matters England had brought upon herself the enmity of both the belligerent parties, loudly proclaimed in the one case, and more quietly, and somewhat contemptuously, expressed in the other. But neither vituperation nor thanklessness, it must be said, availed for a moment to stay the stream of charity which the ever open hand of England poured out upon the sufferers by the war. Meanwhile she

was in one of her fits of periodical alarm about herself, and to believe those who should know best, she was never in so fatally unprepared a condition as now, at a moment when the Prussian armaments were secretly gathering against her, if indeed the French war, as some of our journals more than insinuated, had not been undertaken chiefly as a prelude to the working-out of some sinister design upon ourselves. Loudly and publicly, after our usual fashion, did we proclaim every where and in every way, as the best means of averting the danger, our hopeless state of incapacity and misgovernment, and declare ourselves an easy prey to the coming invader; while almost in the same breath many of those who rated loudest were calling on

us to make common cause with the French Republic. Fortunately the Prussians either did not believe us, or spared to act on the belief. Perhaps-for the contemporary historian can only speak in perhapses-they had so much upon their hands that they did not think very much about us. Fortunately, too, Mr. Gladstone's ministry held firm, more happy in this than they were destined to prove themselves in the legislation of the forthcoming session, which was to bring to them little but failure and mortification. In her relations to the belligerent powers, as far as in them lay, they held England blameless, and the general voice of the country fully and unreservedly approved them. But that general voice, at the same time, called upon them to take rigorous measures for increasing the efficiency of our forces by a sweeping reform, which, all allowance made for panic and exaggeration, was universally felt to have become a pressing necessity. Orators "stumped" the country in all directions, preaching the need of vigorous action, foremost among whom, in mark and success, was Mr. George Trevelyan, the young member for the Border boroughs, who had made for himself a specialty of the "abolition of purchase," as the first great step required. So much had the ideas on this point, of which he stood forward as the exponent, penetrated the mind of the country, that it will be seen that this particular reform was adopted and incorporated by the ministry in the scheme proposed by them to Parliament, by a concession altogether unexpected, and further that, when the Army Regulation Bill finally became law by a violent exercise of power which will be described in its place, it had been narrowed to little more than a measure for the abolition of purchase. Army Reform was not the only subject of domestic oratory and agitation at the commencement of the year, as Mr. Bruce's threatened Licensing Bill came in for its full share; and if the interest taken in it was not so widely spread as the interest in the military question, it was certainly quite as genuine. The Licensed Victuallers marshalled a violent and, in the end, successful opposition to Mr. Bruce. The Contagious Diseases Acts furnished another subject of agitation, the opposition to them being led by certain women, who were not ashamed to use arguments in public which men on their side were too modest to answer. So effective was the turmoil they created, that candidates for Parliament were every where called upon to pledge themselves to the repeal of the obnoxious measures, by working-men to whom the scope and objects of them had been in many cases studiously misrepresented. Thus Sir Henry Storks, who manfully declared his intention to support the Acts, and whose presence in Parliament at this crisis was most desirable for other reasons, with great difficulty found a seat at Ripon. The days of a most useful sanitary reform appeared already numbered.

With these sore subjects added to the excitement created by meetings of sympathy with the French Republic, doomed in a very few weeks to alienate all but the most revolutionary of her admirers, it will be seen that there was enough food and to spare, at the com

mencement of 1871, for the usual speech-making and letter-writing that usher in the meeting of Parliament. We had our foreign questions also. The public mind was excited at the commencement of the year, by the story of the Prussian seizure of our vessels at Duclair', and there were not wanting newspapers, as well as individuals, to do all in their power to magnify it into an immediate cause of quarrel, and to set it down to the deliberate and diabolical machinations of Prince Bismarck, (to anticipate his new honours by a few weeks). Unluckily, or luckily, for these alarmists, the German Chancellor proved himself at once perfectly reasonable upon the subject. In a message sent without delay to Lord Granville, he wrote, "You are authorized to say to Lord Granville that we sincerely regret that our troops, in order to avert immediate danger, were obliged to seize ships belonging to British subjects. We admit their claim to indemnification, and shall pay to the owners the value of the ships according to equitable estimation, without keeping them waiting for the decision of the question who is finally to indemnify them. Should it be proved that excesses have been committed which were not justified by the necessity of defence, we should regret it still more, and call the guilty persons to account." A rumour that the German demands on France would include the cession of Pondicherry, which excited English society for the moment more perhaps than any thing else during the war, was also contradicted as soon as spread. More important foreign questions we had at this time to deal with, in the shape of the neutralization of the Black Sea, and the famous Russian note upon that head which had caused so much excitement, and also in the well-worn Alabama claims, which had grown to be a weariness and vexation of spirit to public and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, and would seem to survive in America only as a useful expedient to be employed when an Irish vote was to be bidden for. To settle the Black Sea question, a Conference met in London early in the year; to dispose of the Alabama claims, a treaty was subsequently agreed upon and drawn up at Washington, of which further mention will be made in its place. Both these negotiations resulted in a settlement which was greeted with general satisfaction, and must therefore be accepted by the annalist as satisfactory. But it must be open to him to wonder in what light such settlement would have appeared to our fathers, in days, when other, though it may be very mistaken, views were taken of national credit and national honour. There would seem to be some strange inconsistency in the disposition which willingly, and even gratefully, accepts such arrangements as these, and quarrels beforehand over such trifling and unavoidable incidents as the seizure at Duclair.

The Conference was invited with a view to deliberate on, and, if possible, to come to a friendly agreement in respect of, certain complaints made by Russia as to the bearing of the Treaty of 1856

1 An Account of this occurrence will be found in our "Chronicle."

upon her national position. It will be remembered that, at the close of the Crimean War, which was certainly provoked by Russian ambition, that gigantic Northern Power was put under a restraint by the other great Powers of Europe, necessarily partaking of a penal character. Russia had broken the peace of Europe by crossing the Pruth, in the same violent fashion as Napoleon III. disturbed the public tranquillity of the European system by declaring war against Prussia. The Emperor Nicholas did so with a view to the aggrandisement of Russia at the expense of Turkey in Europe. A strong warlike fleet issued from the supposed impregnable port and arsenal of Sebastopol, and, taking the fleet of Turkey at a disadvantage, practically destroyed it. When the war arising out of these events was brought to an issue adverse to the designs of Russia, it was both natural and fitting that the Power which for a merely selfish end had defied the strength of the other Powers of Europe should be placed under conditions intended so far to restrict its natural rights as to prevent the possibility of a like irruption in future.

On the fall of Sebastopol, and the conclusion of a treaty with Sweden, by which the Allies would have been able to carry the war into Finland, Austria renewed the offer of her good offices, and four points for which the Allies were contending were again presented in a more detailed form. The third point-that "the Treaty of July 13, 1841 (known as the Treaty of the Straits), should be revised by the high contracting parties in the interest of the European balance of power, and with a view to a limitation of the Russian power in the Black Sea "-now took the shape of an agreement that the Black Sea should be neutralized, that its waters should be open to the merchant marine of all nations, but not to any ships of war; that there should be no military arsenals on its banks; and that Russia and Turkey should mutually engage to maintain in the Black Sea only a specified number of light vessels for the service of the coasts. Before this was submitted to Russia, it had been warmly discussed by the Western Powers. A proposal by France to lower the terms provoked an indignant remonstrance from England, Lord Palmerston declaring that, sooner than accept inadequate terms, England and Turkey would carry on the war alone. England insisted that the engagement as to the Black Sea must be embodied in the general treaty with the Powers, and must not be modified without their assent. These views carried the day, and on January 5, 1856, Count Nesselrode accepted the bases of the negotiation.

These preliminaries being settled, the Congress of Paris opened on February 25, and on March 4 the third point came up for consideration. It was agreed that the Black Sea should be neutralized, and that its waters and ports, while thrown open to the mercantile marine of every nation, should be "formally and in perpetuity interdicted to the flag of war, either of the Powers possessing its coasts or of any other Power, with the exceptions stipulated in the present Treaty." The paragraph as to the prohibition of military