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CHAPTER VII.

THE FRUITS OF PEACE.

T the very moment when the most illustrious of her old military leaders vanished from earth, England found herself upon the point of losing for a time that peace which she had now enjoyed for more than forty years, a period of tranquillity which had given scope for so much useful and brilliant progress, which had been favorable to so many useful and brilliant undertakings, and had secured to future generations so many benefits.

British arms had not remained absolutely inactive during all this time. Far-off hostilities had from time to time disturbed the repose of the mother-country. We have seen that the English had made war upon the Chinese, in order to impose upon them the opium trade, and upon the Afghans, to oblige them to accept a sovereign of English selection. Nor was this all. Following upon the disastrous campaign in Afghanistan, an attack had been made, and with better success, by Sir Charles Napier upon Scinde, a territory reported (and without doubt, truly) to be animated by hostile sentiments towards England. He had captured the fortress Emaun-Ghur, taking with him across the desert a handful of English troops mounted on camels. The treaty which he had determined to force upon the ruler of Scinde was accepted, but its conditions were severe. The Scindians sought only to evade it, and the very day after the signatures had been affixed, Major Outram, the English resident at Hyderabad, was attacked by a swarm

of Beloochees. He succeeded in making his escape by the river, but Sir Charles Napier determined to avenge the violation of the treaty and to strengthen his conquest. His forces were inconsiderable, and he had but a dozen guns. On the morning of the 17th of February he wrote in his journal: “It is my first battle as a commander; it may be my last. At sixty that makes little difference; but my feelings are, it shall be Do or die. To fall will be to leave many I love best, to go to many loved and my home; and that, in any case, must be soon." Success was to crown the resolve of the bold soldier who had learnt the art of war in the great struggles of the Peninsula ; the battle of Meanee was fought and gained; Hyderabad surrendered. Further engagements ensured to England the possession of Scinde, and the successful general became its first governor. He knew how to develop the prosperity of the province which was entrusted to him, and to teach its warlike population to enjoy the benefits of peace. The happy results of his administration were conspicuous at the time of the revolt of nearly all India, when Scinde remained faithful to its English rulers.

Some hostilities between the governor-general of India and the Mahrattas, and a short campaign against the Kaffirs also marked the years just past, the distant echo of these sounds of war now and then reaching the ears of England, but scarcely touching her heart. The day was approaching when all the best of England's strength was to be called forth in a prolonged and cruel struggle, without danger, indeed, to her national position, but bitter to many hearts, and fatal to many lives. Before entering upon the story of the Crimean War, it will be well to glance at the fruits of this long peace, which had healed the wounds and renewed the strength of England.

We have already spoken of the marvellous progress brought about in the interior condition of England by the construction

of railways; the transformation became daily more complete as the network of new roads extended further and further, and the population became more and more habituated to their use. Postal communications had attained, almost at a single stride, the highest degree of perfection. The telegraph was gaining slowly the ground it was destined so completely to conquer. Free-trade had won its definitive victory, Lord Derby's Cabinet, nominally made up of protectionists, having been forced to abandon their ground. All English ports were now open to the merchandise of the world, with an abatement of all those duties which had not yet ceased utterly to exist.

Social progress kept pace with commerce and industry. The English government and private philanthropic enterprise were busied in securing cheap bread to the working people, and also in sanitary reforms affecting the water-supply, and the condition of their dwellings. In the latter respect, reform was imperatively required. In Liverpool and in Manchester, and in many other manufacturing cities, a tenth of the population were housed in cellars flooded in every shower of rain. Immense systems of drainage purified these pestilential quarters; associations were formed to establish public baths and wash-houses; cemeteries were by degrees removed to the outskirts of the towns; and important engineering works were undertaken for the purpose of bringing pure water into populous centres. the same time, and from the same charitable impulse, leading the intelligent and cultivated classes to efforts for the material and moral improvement of the classes beneath them who were often blind to their own real interests, it was forbidden to employ in mines women and girls, naturally unsuited for that species of labor. They had often borne the part of beasts of burden. The labor of children in the mines was also limited and regulated, as it was shortly after to be in the factories. The eminent philanthropist, Lord Ashley, - better known as

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Lord Shaftesbury - strove vainly for many years to reduce to ten hours the labor of women in factories. The day's work of children under thirteen was fixed at six hours and a half, and the care of their education was no longer abandoned to the doubtful charity of their employers. Parliament made laws upon this subject, and established penalties. From year to year the principle of the right and duty of the nation to protect the weak against the oppression of the strong, and against their own errors of judgment, gained ground in men's minds notwithstanding the opposition of the absolute principles of political economy. Nor were the sufferings of the agricultural population completely neglected in this generous crusade; the evil was acknowledged, and efforts were made, though often insufficient and incomplete, to furnish remedies for it.

Ignorance was manifestly one of the deep causes of the degradation and poverty of the working classes. Up to this time popular education had been almost entirely in the hands of the Church of England or of the dissenting sects, assisted by the efforts and sacrifices of the landed proprietors. From the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign, the state entered upon a more liberal course, and important grants were voted by the Houses for purposes of popular education. In 1839, for the first time, a council of Public Instruction was formed, especially entrusted with the establishment of normal schools for teachers of both

sexes.

The progress of the public interest in this matter was rapid. In 1847, an animated discussion took place on the propositions of Lord John Russell upon the subject. The government aid to schools, which in 1833 was £30,000, had now been increased to £100,000. Sir Robert Peel entered into the question warmly, like one who had long given it his serious attention, and regretted that he had done so little for so great a public interest. "If," he said, "we could know the extent of evil which has

arisen from the present ignorance of the people; if there could be presented to us a full account of all the crime which has been generated by the want of education; if we could obtain a statement, extending over the last fifty years, of all the vice which the evil example of parents has impressed upon the character and disposition of children, the violence and rapine which ignorance has occasioned, the offences against life and property which a neglect of education has superinduced; if we could only enumerate how many immortal souls have been within that period sent into the presence of their Creator and their Judge, ignorant of the great truths of religion and the principles of Christianity, we should shudder at our own grievous disregard of duty, and struggle without delay to repair the evils of our past neglect."

The remedies proposed by Lord John Russell were not as yet very extensive, and his language went much further than his measures, but the principles on which they were based were sound and practical. The State was to give assistance to the efforts, whether of the Church of England, of the dissenting sects, of laic corporations, or of private individuals, and everywhere to afford to this great work its strength and its superintendence, without interfering at any point either with religious beliefs or the free action of individual zeal. Sir Robert Peel warmly supported the propositions of the Cabinet, insisting strenuously upon the necessity of religious direction, so hotly attacked in our days.

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'I am," he said, "for a religious as opposed to a secular education. I do not think that a secular education alone would be acceptable to the people of this country. I believe that such an education is only half an education, but with the most important half neglected." At the same time, a spirit of justice and toleration is conspicuous in his words. "I do not deny," he says, "the Established Church is powerful; I rejoice that it is