Afghanistan, and an inglorious war with a savage African tribe.
A period of distress at home increased the discontent which Lord
Beaconsfield’s external policy was exciting; and, when parliament
was at last dissolved in 1880, it seemed no longer certain
that the country would endorse the policy of the minister, who
only a short time before had acquired such popularity. Gladstone,
emerging from his retirement, practically placed himself again at
the head of the Liberal party. In a series of speeches in Midlothian,
where he offered himself for election, he denounced the
whole policy which Lord Beaconsfield had pursued. His impassioned
eloquence did much more than influence his own
election. His speeches decided the contest throughout the
kingdom. The Liberals secured an even more surprising success
than that which had rewarded the Conservatives six years before.
For the first time in the queen’s reign, a solid Liberal majority,
independent of all extraneous Irish support, was returned, and
Gladstone resumed in triumph his old position as prime minister.
The new minister had been swept into power on a wave of popular favour, but he inherited from his predecessors difficulties in almost every quarter of the world; and his own language had perhaps tended to increase them. He was committed to a reversal of Lord Beaconsfield’s Gladstone’s second ministry. policy; and, in politics, it is never easy, and perhaps rarely wise, suddenly and violently to change a system. In one quarter of the world the new minister achieved much success. The war in Afghanistan, which had begun with disaster, was creditably concluded. A better understanding was gradually established with Russia; and, before the ministry went out, steps had been taken which led to the delimitation of the Russian and Afghan frontier. In South Africa, however, a very different result ensued. Gladstone, before he accepted office, had denounced the policy of annexing the Transvaal; his language was so strong that he was charged with encouraging the Boers to maintain their independence by force; his example had naturally been imitated by some of his followers at the general election; and, when he resumed power, he found himself in the difficult dilemma of either maintaining an arrangement which he had declared to be unwise, or of yielding to a demand which the Boers were already threatening to support in arms. The events of the first year of his administration added to his difficulty. Before its close the Boers seized Heidelberg and established a republic; they destroyed a detachment of British troops at Bronkhorst Spruit; and they surrounded and attacked the British garrisons in the Transvaal. Troops were of course sent from England to maintain the British cause; and Sir George Colley, who enjoyed a high reputation and had experience in South African warfare, was made governor of Natal, and entrusted with the military command. The events which immediately followed will not be easily forgotten. Wholly miscalculating the strength of the Boers, Sir George Colley, at the end of January 1881, attacked them at Laing’s Nek, in the north of Natal, and was repulsed with heavy loss. Some ten days afterwards he fought another action on the Ingogo, and was again forced to retire. On the 26th February, with some 600 men, he occupied a high hill, known as Majuba, which, he thought, dominated the Boer position. The following day the Boers attacked the hill, overwhelmed its defenders, and Sir George Colley was himself killed in the disastrous contest on the summit. News of these occurrences was received with dismay in England. It was, no doubt, possible to say a good deal for Gladstone’s indignant denunciation of his predecessor’s policy in annexing the Transvaal; it would have been equally possible to advance many reasons for reversing the measures of Lord Beaconsfield’s Boer War, 1881. cabinet, and for conceding independence to the Transvaal in 1880. But the great majority of persons considered that, whatever arguments might have been urged for concession in 1880, when British troops had suffered no reverses, nothing could be said for concession in 1881, when their arms had been tarnished by a humiliating disaster. Great countries can afford to be generous in the hour of victory; but they cannot yield, without loss of credit, in the hour of defeat. Unfortunately this reasoning was not suited to Gladstone’s temperament. The justice or injustice of the British cause seemed to him a much more important matter than the vindication of military honour; and he could not bring himself to acknowledge that Majuba had altered the situation, and that the terms which he had made up his mind to concede before the battle could not be safely granted till military reputation was restored. The retrocession of the Transvaal was decided upon, though it was provided that the country should remain under the suzerainty of the queen. Even this great concession did not satisfy the ambition of the Boers, who were naturally elated by their victories. Three years later some Transvaal deputies, with their president, Kruger, came to London and saw Lord Derby, the secretary of state for the colonies. Lord Derby consented to a new convention, from which any verbal reference to suzerainty was excluded; and the South African republic was made independent, subject only to the condition that it should conclude no treaties with foreign powers without the approval of the crown. (For the details and disputes concerning the terms of this convention the reader is referred to the articles Transvaal and Suzerainty.)
Gladstone’s government declined in popularity from the date of the earliest of these concessions. Gladstone, in fact, had succeeded in doing what Lord Beaconsfield had failed to accomplish. Annoyance at his foreign policy had rekindled the imperialism which the embarrassments created by Lord Beaconsfield had done so much to damp down. And, if things were going badly with the new government abroad, matters were not progressing smoothly at home. At the general election of 1880, the borough of Northampton, which of late years has shown an unwavering preference for Liberals of an advanced type, returned as its members Henry Labouchere and Charles Bradlaugh. Bradlaugh. Bradlaugh, who had attained some notoriety for an aggressive atheism, claimed the right to make an affirmation of allegiance instead of taking the customary oath, which he declared was, in his eyes, a meaningless form. The speaker, instead of deciding the question, submitted it to the judgment of the House, and it was ultimately referred to a select committee, which reported against Bradlaugh’s claim. Bradlaugh, on hearing the decision of the committee, presented himself at the bar and offered to take the oath. It was objected that, as he had publicly declared that the words of the oath had no clear meaning for him, he could not be permitted to take it; and after some wrangling the matter was referred to a fresh committee, which supported the view that Bradlaugh could not be allowed to be sworn, but recommended that he should be permitted to make the affirmation at his own risk. The House refused to accept the recommendation of this committee when a bill was introduced to give effect to it. This decision naturally enlarged the question before it. For, while hitherto the debate had turned on the technical points whether an affirmation could be substituted for an oath, or whether a person who had declared that an oath had no meaning for him could properly be sworn, the end at which Bradlaugh’s opponents were thenceforward aiming was the imposition of a new religious test—the belief in a God—on members of the House of Commons. The controversy, which thus began, continued through the parliament of 1880, and led to many violent scenes, which lowered the dignity of the House. It was quietly terminated, in the parliament of 1886, by the firm action of a new speaker. Mr Peel, who had been elected to the chair in 1884, decided that neither the speaker nor any other member had the right to intervene to prevent a member from taking the oath if he was willing to take it. Parliament subsequently, by a new act, permitted affirmations to be used, and thenceforward religion, or the absence of religion, was no disqualification for a seat in the House of Commons. The atheist, like the Roman Catholic and the Jew, could sit and vote.
The Bradlaugh question was not the only difficulty with which the new government was confronted. Ireland was again attracting the attention of politicians. The Fenian movement had practically expired; some annual motions for the introduction of Home Rule, made with all the decorum of
