CHAPTER LXVI.

THE ANTICLIMAX OF IMPERIALISM.

DURING the excitement caused by the preparations for the Congress of Berlin a long career came quietly to a close. On May 28th, 1878, Lord Russell died at his residence, Pembroke Lodge, Richmond. He may be said to have faded out of life, to have ceased to live, rather than to have died, so quiet, gradual, almost imperceptible was the passing away. Not many days before his death, on May 9th, a deputation of representative and distinguished Non-conformists had waited upon him to present him with an address on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, a reform of which he was the great promoter. Lord Russell was not able to receive the deputation; his wife and son spoke for him. He had not for some time taken any active part in public affairs. We have already in this book spoken of his political career as closed. Now and then some public event aroused his attention, and he addressed a letter to one of the newspapers. He wrote as a man speaks, who, sinking quietly and gradually into death, is suddenly roused to interest in the affairs of the living by catching some words of a half-whispered conversation around him, and who murmurs some sentences of faint remonstrance or advice. There was something strangely pathetic in these utterances, with their imperfect application to the actual condition of things around, and the testimony they bore to the fading man's inextinguishable interest in the progress of living history. To the last moments of his life Lord Russell refused to surrender wholly his concern in the affairs of men. The world listened respectfully to these few occasional words from one who had borne a leader's part in some of the greatest political struggles of the century, and who still, from the very edge of the grave, was anxious to offer his whisper of counsel or of warning. No one felt bound to weigh too carefully the substantial

and practical value of the advice, under the altered conditions of that actual time to which Lord Russell could hardly be said to belong any more. His had been on the whole a great career. He had not only lived through great changes; he had helped to accomplish some of the greatest changes his time had known. His life was singularly unselfish. He was often eager and pushing where he believed that he saw his way to do something needful, and men confounded the zeal of a cause with the eagerness of personal ambition. He never cared for money, and his original rank raised him above any possible consideration for enhanced social distinction. He had made many mistakes; but those who knew him best prized most highly both his political capacity and his personal character. His later years were made happy and smooth by all that the love of a household could do. He had lost a son, a young man of much political promise, Lord Amberley, who died in 1876; but, on the whole, he had suffered less in his later time than is commonly the lot of those who live to extreme old age. The time of his death was in a certain sense appropriate. His public carcer had just begun at the time of the Congress of Vienna; it closed with the preparations for the Congress of Berlin.

Why did not Lord Beaconsfield sacrifice to the gods his dearest possession, his political majority, immediately after the triumphal return from Berlin? The opinion of nearly all who pretended to form a judgment was, that at that time the great majority of the constituents were with him. He seemed to have reached the zenith of his own power, and to have accomplished that object which is held so dear by a certain class of Englishmen, that of making the influence of England predominant over the councils of Europe. It is said that he was strongly advised by some of his northern supporters not to put the country then to the cost of a general election. Trade had been depressed for some time. The depression was due, in the first instance, to causes which had no concern with politics, but it had, of course, been made much deeper by the anxiety and uneasiness which the too enterprising policy of the Government kept alive in these countries. It was, therefore, strongly pressed on Lord Beaconsfield that, especially in the northern counties, where he had many influential supporters, the drain caused by bad

trade had been so heavy that it would be unfair to hasten a dissolution, and thus impose large and at that time unnecessary cost on the constituencies. Whatever the reason may have been, the expected dissolution did not take place, and from that time Lord Beaconsfield never had any chance of a successful appeal to the country. From that time the popularity of his Government began to go down and down. Many things were against them for which they were not responsible, many things for which they had made themselves distinctly responsible. The badness of trade and the general depression were no fault of theirs to begin with, but, as we have just said, they aggravated every evil of this kind by the strain on which they kept the expectation of the country. Their domestic policy had not been successful. They had attempted many large measures, and failed to carry them through. They had not satisfied the country party, to whom they owed so much. The malt-tax remained a grievance, as it had been for generations. The Government had got into trouble with the Home Rule party. Mr. Butt had been failing in physical power and in influence for some time. His place as a leader had long been practically disputed by Mr. Parnell, and was evidently about to be taken by him. Mr. Parnell, a young man but lately come into Parliament, soon proved himself the most remarkable politician who had arisen on the field of Irish politics since the day when John Mitchel was conveyed away from Dublin to Bermuda. The tactics adopted by Mr. Parnell annoyed and discredited the Government. Good-natured men of respectable ability and no great force of character, like Sir Stafford Northcote, were wholly unable to cope with the pertinacity and policy of such an antagonist. The country blamed the Ministry, it scarcely knew why, for the manner in which the policy called obstructive had been allowed to come into force. It was evident that a new chapter in Irish agitation was opening, and those who disliked the prospect felt inclined to lay the blame on the Government, as if, because they happened to be in office, they must be responsible for everything that took place during their official reign. All these influences combined were telling against Lord Beaconsfield's administration. Perhaps, had he been still in the House of Commons, and still in the possession of his

full physical vigor, he might have done something to maintain the credit of his Government. But in the quiet shelter of the House of Lords he could only now and then make a show speech, in which he usually succeeded in convincing the public of his entire independence and isolation from the policy and the purposes of his colleagues. Scarcely ever

was a Ministerial explanation of any important part of the Government policy given in the House of Commons without its being followed by some explanation breathing a totally different spirit, and conveyed in utterly different words, from the lips of Lord Beaconsfield. In the House of Commons, Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. Cross almost invariably endeavored to minimize and reduce to the most practicable limits the objects of the foreign policy of the Government. In the House of Lords, the Prime-minister almost invariably endeavored to magnify his office and his mission, and to insist upon it that every step taken by him in foreign affairs was part of a great, new, ambitious, and imperial policy. Most of all, the Ministry suffered from the effect produced upon the country by the smaller wars into which they had plunged.

The first of these was the invasion of Afghanistan. This was part of the great Imperial policy which Lord Lytton was sent to carry out in India. The Government determined to send a mission to Shere Ali, one of the sons of Dost Mahomed, and then the ruler of Cabul. During the time when it was still uncertain whether England and Russia would not be at war, the Russian Government appear to have sent an envoy of their own to Cabul with the object, no doubt, of obtaining the direct or indirect assistance of Shere Ali. The English Government determined to guard against possible danger for the future by establishing a distinct and paramount influence in Afghanistan. Shere Ali strongly objected to receive either a mission or a permanent. Resident. The mission was sent forward. It was so numerous as to look rather like an army than an embassy. It started from Peshawur on September 21st, 1878, but was stopped on the frontier by an officer of Shere Ali, who objected to its passing through until he had received authority from his master. This delay was magnified, by the news first received here, into an insolent rebuff. The unlucky

performance which had been attempted in France, in 1870, was by chance, or error, or purpose, enacted over again on a small scale in England. The English Envoy was made to play the part of the French Ambassador, and the passion of the English people for the moment became inflamed with the idea of an insult to the English flag. The Envoy was ordered to go on, and before long the mission was turned into an invasion. The Afghans made but a poor resistance, and the English troops soon occupied Cabul. Shere Ali fled from his capital. One portion of our forces occupied Candahar. Lord Beaconsfield announced that the object of the invasion in Afghanistan was satisfactorily accomplished; that England was now in possession of the three great highways which connected Afghanistan with India; that he hoped the country would long remain in possession of them, and that it had secured a frontier which would render the Indian Empire invulnerable. Shere Ali died, and Yakoob Khan, his son, became his successor. Yakoob Khan presented himself at the British camp, which had now been established at Gandamak, a place between Jellalabad and Cabul. Here the Treaty of Gandamak was signed on May 5th, 1879. The Indian Government undertook by this Treaty to pay the Ameer £60,000 a year, and the Ameer ceded, or appeared to cede, what Lord Beaconsfield called the scientific frontier," and agreed to admit a British representative to reside in Cabul. On those conditions he was to be supported against any foreign enemy with money and arms, and if necessary, with men. Hardly had the country ceased clapping its hands and exulting over the quiet establishment of an English Resident at Cabul, when a telegram arrived announcing that the events of November, 1841, had repeated themselves in that city. The tragedy of Sir Alexander Burnes was enacted over again. Down almost to its smallest details that terrible drama was played once more. Only the actors were new. A popular rising took place in Cabul exactly as had happened in 1841. Sir Louis Cavagnari, the English Envoy, and all, or nearly all, the members of his staff were murdered. There was nothing to be done for it but to invade Cabul over again, and take vengeance for the massacre of the English officers. The British troops hurried up, fought their way with their usual success, and on

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