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1871.]

AGITATION FOR A REPUBLIC.

405

The long-suffering income-tax payers would have grumbled and paid as they had hitherto done under all the vicissitudes through which the impost had passed. But the mystification and puzzling which it was alleged that the percentage would occasion excited strong censure. The 'death duties as they were denominated, roused a very formidable opposition, but of all of Mr. Lowe's proposals that which excited the strongest disapprobation was that for a tax on lucifer matches. When the intentions of government respecting it came to be known, there swarmed forth from the lowest parts of London thousands of poor girls who earned a miserable subsistence by means of some industry connected with the production of the articles on which this tax was to be laid. They filled the approaches to the two Houses and besought the members to reject the proposed impost. The evident poverty and distress of those who made this appeal pleaded powerfully on their behalf. Their petition was favourably received, and its prayer being in evident accordance with the general sentiment of the House and the country, was promptly granted. The succession duties shared the fate of the match tax, and the loss thus occasioned was made up by the addition of another penny to the income tax.

The autumn was enlivened by an agitation for a republic suggested by the triumph which that form of government had achieved in France. Foremost among its advocates was Sir Charles Dilke, M.P. for Chelsea, who had recently inherited a baronetcy which his father was understood to have obtained through the favour of Prince Albert. The young baronet attacked the sovereign who had conferred the title which enabled him to command a large share of public attention, by statements and arguments marked with bad taste and gross inaccuracy, alleging that the Queen had never paid income tax, and when it was shown that she had regularly paid her quota to it from its first introduction, allowing months to pass before he retracted the statement. He exaggerated the amount which the Queen received, and contrasted it with the modest income of the President of the United States, forgetting that the question between a monarchy and a republic is not a question of money, and that a person could easily be found competent and willing to discharge the duties of royalty for as small or even a

smaller salary than that of the head of the great American Republic, but that the large allowance which the representatives of the English people vote to their sovereign is a spontaneous manifestation of the loyalty of the British people, and of their desire that the court should be maintained in dignity and splendour. It was strongly felt that if such an agitation was to be carried on at all it was not by Sir Charles Dilke that it should be conducted; that he, of all men, was the most unfit to undertake it; and that, at all events, before entering on his crusade against royalty, he ought to have divested himself of all that he owed to the sovereign, and not to attack our monarchical institutions with the weapons they had put into his hands on a very different understanding. Unfortunately the popular indignation which this agitation excited was displayed in a manner greatly to be deprecated. In some instances, the people, instead of confiding in the goodness of their cause, and the in-bred loyalty of the nation, assailed Sir Charles and his adherents with lawless violence.

At the moment when this agitation was being carried on most actively, an event occurred which showed how little the deep-rooted attachment of the English people to their monarchical institutions, and to the person and family of the sovereign, had been shaken by it. Never, perhaps, in any country did any announcement evoke stronger or more general expressions of sympathy and sorrow than the news that the Prince of Wales was suffering from an attack of the disorder that had proved fatal to his illustrious father. He had spent a few days at the seat of Lord Londesborough, near Scarborough, and it was supposed that while there he had been exposed to a poisonous effluvium proceeding from a badly-trapped drain. Soon after his return to Sandringham he was attacked by typhoid fever. At first his indisposition seemed to be slight, but it soon assumed a serious character, and his condition became exceedingly critical. Unfavourable rumours respecting him had before been industriously circulated, had obtained too ready a credence, and had somewhat impaired his popularity. But when it became known that his illness was really dangerous, there was an unparalleled outburst of loyal sympathy. For some time, while he was between life and death, it seemed as though the whole nation had

1871.] ILLNESS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

407

become one great family, whose hope and chief stay was stricken with dangerous illness. Every bulletin was expected in every town and village of the kingdom with intense anxiety, and as the telegraph flashed the tidings to the utmost extremities of the earth, Englishmen in every country were anxiously waiting for the latest intelligence, and went away joyful or dejected, according as the tidings conveyed were hopeful or unfavourable. The attention of all civilised nations was drawn to this striking manifestation of loyalty, which produced everywhere a strong feeling in favour of monarchical government and English institutions. The sympathy and anxiety reached their culminating point on the 14th of December, the anniversary of the death of the Prince Consort, and when it was found that it had passed over with a change for the better rather than for the worse, the nation breathed more freely, and hoped more sanguinely. Meanwhile, in every church, and in almost every other place of worship throughout the British Empire, special prayers were offered on behalf of the Prince and his widowed mother, and continued to be offered up till his convalescence was established. On the 19th of December the object of so many fervent prayers and so much heartfelt sympathy was so far restored to health that the Queen and other members of the royal family felt themselves at liberty to quit Sandringham, and from that time, notwithstanding some untoward symptoms, the progress of the prince's recovery, though slow, was steady and unbroken.

The Queen thus expressed her sense of the loyal sympathy which had been manifested towards herself and the prince throughout this trying period :

'WINDSOR CASTLE, Dec. 26, 1871. 'The Queen is very anxious to express her deep sense of the touching sympathy of the whole nation on the occasion of the alarming illness of her dear son, the Prince of Wales. The universal feeling shown for her by her people during those painful, terrible days, and the sympathy evinced by them with herself and her beloved daughter, the Princess of Wales, as well as the general joy at the improvement in the Prince of Wales' state, have made a deep and lasting impression on her heart, which can never be effaced. It

was indeed nothing new to her, for the Queen had met with the same sympathy when, just ten years ago, a similar illness removed from her side the mainstay of her life, the best, wisest, and kindest of husbands.

'The Queen wishes to express, at the same time, on the part of the Princess of Wales, her feelings of heartfelt gratitude, for she has been as deeply touched as the Queen by the great and universal manifestation of loyalty and sympathy.

The Queen cannot conclude without expressing her hope that her faithful subjects will continue their prayers to God for the complete recovery of her dear son to health and strength.'

Having thus conveyed her thanks to her subjects, her Majesty determined also to make a public demonstration of her gratitude to the Almighty for the great mercy He had shown towards her and the prince. A solemn thanksgiving service was held in St. Paul's, at which the Queen, the Prince, and the rest of the royal family attended, but which was chiefly memorable on account of the ardent demonstrations of loyalty and personal attachment to the Queen made by millions of her subjects who crowded every place commanding a view of the route by which the procession went to and returned from the great metropolitan cathedral, and whose conduct on the occasion cannot be better described than in the Queen's own words :

:

'BUCKINGHAM PALACE, Feb. 29, 1872. "The Queen is anxious, as on a previous occasion, to express publicly her own personal very deep sense of the reception she and her dear children met with on Thursday, February 27, from millions of her subjects on her way to and from St. Paul's.

'Words are too weak for the Queen to say how very deeply touched and gratified she had been by the immense enthusiasm and affection exhibited towards her dear son and herself, from the highest down to the lowest, on the long progress through the capital, and she would earnestly wish to convey her warmest and most heartfelt thanks to the whole nation for this great demonstration of loyalty.

'The Queen, as well as her son and her dear daughter

1872.]

SIR R. COLLIER.

409

in-law, felt that the whole nation joined with them in thanking God for sparing the beloved Prince of Wales' life.

'The remembrance of this day, and of the remarkable order maintained throughout, will for ever be affectionately remembered by the Queen and her family.'

One of the first subjects that engaged the attention of Parliament at the commencement of the session of 1872 was the appointment of Sir R. Collier as a judge of the new Court of Appeal, in defiance, as was alleged, of the spirit and intention of the statute by which the court had been created. A clause of the act provided that judges of the new court should be chosen from those who were already judges of one of the law courts. In accordance with this provision Mr. Gladstone offered the appointment to three of the judges of these courts, whom he considered to be qualified to fill the office; but as the offer was refused by all of them he felt that it would be lowered in public estimation if it were hawked about any more. Under these circumstances, the attorney-general, Sir R. Collier, having been informed of the difficulty in which the government was placed by these refusals, offered himself for the vacant post, though he might fairly hope, by waiting, to obtain the higher preferment of lord chancellor or chief justice of one of the courts. But as he had not yet been raised to the judicial bench, he did not possess the qualification required by the act. To get over this difficulty he was appointed to a vacant puisne judgeship in the Court of Common Pleas, and after having held it for only two days was transferred to the Court of Appeal. The manner of this appointment was certainly calculated to make an unfavourable impression. It was thought by many of the opponents of the government and by some of its supporters, that the spirit and intention of the statute had been grossly violated; and this feeling was strengthened when a letter from Lord Chief Justice Cockburn appeared, strongly condemning the manner in which the appointment had been made, and was followed by another from the chief justice of the Common Pleas, protesting against the manner in which his court had been treated. The opportunity thus afforded of inflicting a damaging defeat on the government was too tempting

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