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be confined to the case where a curate had been employed for five years. As to diocesan commutation, the Government-which had already added seven per cent. to the amount of the annuities obtainable by commuting incumbents-now agreed to grant five per cent. more; this involved a diminution of the surplus by upwards of £700,000. Better terms for curates had been already conceded. The acceptance of commutation by threefourths, instead of four-fifths, of the clergy of a diocese was to be held sufficient. The Government had also agreed to exempt from the commutation any residence and land in an incumbent's own occupation, if the incumbent should so desire. Lastly, there was the question of the disposal of the surplus. The Government, on this point, had consented to amend the 68th clause, so that it would provide for the employment of the surplus for the relief of unavoidable calamity, and in such manner as Parliament should hereafter direct.

A general sense of relief, mingled with admiration for the consummate ability and discretion with which Lord Cairns had managed his case, pervaded the House at this announcement. The compromise which he had agreed to on his own responsibility was adopted with hardly a dissentient voice, and the bill was then returned to the House of Commons, where (July 23) it received a final consideration. Mr. Gladstone did not conceal that he deemed the last grant of five per cent. in augmentation of the commutation fund to be a matter of great importance, and a concession against the principle of the bill. But looking to the mischief of leaving the controversy open, and in deference to the opinion of the House of Lords, and wishing to preserve the harmony between the two Houses (which had never been so severely tried, but which, he thanked God, had withstood the trial), the Government had not felt itself justified in refusing the overtures made to them on the point. The Lords' amendments were then agreed to; and the bill received the royal assent on the 26th July.

This important measure accordingly passed into law; and if, since it has come into operation, it has neither done all the good nor all the harm that its friends and its enemies predicted, a calm examination of the circumstances of the case will easily explain this neutral character of the results obtained. Those who declaimed against the disendowment of the Church as an act of spoliation-confiscation-sacrilege, and predicted that the disregard for the rights of property shown by the Government in this instance would fatally weaken the respect for property in the minds of the general community, forgot the fact, of which Mr. Chichester Fortescue took care to remind them, that "the bill was no more confiscation than the original transfer of the Church property from Roman Catholic to Protestant hands had been; and Parliament, which made that change, might now convert the property to other Irish purposes." On the other hand, the brilliant anticipations of future concord and contentment which Mr. Bright, in a laboured peroration, indulged in, have certainly not been realised. He said that the bill was put forward by the Government as the means of creating a true and solid union,

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and of removing Irish discontent, not only in Ireland, but across the Atlantic. Again: "When I look at this great measure I look on it as a more true and solid union between Ireland and Great Britain. I see it giving tranquillity to our people. When you have a better remedy, I, at least, will consider it. I say, I see it giving tranquillity to our people, greater strength to the realm, and adding a new lustre and a new dignity to the Crown." That the measure was one which tended to do all this seems undeniable; but the subsequent development of the Home Rule movement, and the unreconciled and irreconcilable tone of the "National" portion of the Irish press, permitted us to see how little real progress had been made. In connection with this point, some remarks of the Archbishop of Dublin, in a charge to his clergy (September, 1868), are deserving of attention. The Irish Church, he said, was assailed by Englishmen because Irish outrages had overflowed into England. He asserted that the Roman Catholic priesthood would never allow the Roman Catholic population under their influence to be thoroughly reconciled to imperial rule. The proposal to disestablish the Irish Church was made, he thought, with levity and precipitation; the Roman Catholics would be but feebly and languidly pleased, whilst the Protestants would entertain the liveliest and most enduring resentment for the wrong inflicted upon them. Thus both parties in Ireland, the Protestants as well as the Roman Catholics, ascribed the proceedings of the Liberal Government to fear; by neither was it credited with a simple love of justice. The Irish Roman Catholics could not but see that the bill, while disposing of such vast masses of Irish property, conferred on them no direct benefit whatever; but, on the contrary, inflicted loss, because it deprived them, with but scanty compensation, of the grant of £26,000 a year to Maynooth. They saw that all the changes which the bill underwent in its progress through Parliament were in the direction of making fresh inroads upon the surplus in favour of the disestablished clergy. Even before the Lords' amendments had so greatly swelled the amounts to be given in commutation and compensation, the O'Donoghue observed, on behalf of his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, that the compensation clauses went much farther than was the due of the Irish Protestants, and that to increase them would be an injustice to the Irish people. And while the disendowed Church was thus being, to a large extent, re-endowed, Lord Stanhope's clause-the one solitary indication of a friendly feeling towards the religion of the majority which the bill would have contained— -was summarily and inexorably rejected. It is true that this rejection was promoted by the Irish members themselves. A compact had been entered into between the Irish Liberals and those English and Scotch members who viewed with uncompromising hostility all national establishment or endowment of religion, by which, on condition of the Irish members renouncing anything in the nature of an endowment for the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the English and Scotch Liberals agreed to support the Irish Land Bill when it should be brought forward. Among politicians this was

well understood; but to the masses of the Irish people the disestablishment of the Church must have seemed to be carried out in such a way as to establish no claim whatever on their gratitude.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Mr. Lowe's Budget for 1869: The Surplus swallowed up by the Abys

sinian Expenditure: Remarkable Financial Device: Mr. Lowe creates a Surplus; and proposes a Remission of Taxes: The Budget carried-Discussion on the Enormous Cost of the Abyssinian Expedition: Explanation of Sir Stafford Northcote-The Endowed Schools Act of 1869: Speech of Mr. Forster: The Measure becomes Law - University Tests Bill: Passed in the House of Commons: Thrown out by the Lords-Conduct of Mr. O'Sullivan, Mayor of Cork: The O'Sullivan Disability Bill: The Mayor resigns his Office-Life Peerages Bill brought in by

Lord Russell: Is thrown out on the Third Reading, on the Motion of Lord Malmesbury-State of the Country in 1860-Irish Disaffection-Death of Lord Derby: Sketch of his Career-Death of Lord Gough-France in 1869: Pacific Attitude of the Emperor's Government: Dissolution of the Chambers: General Election: Senatus Consultum abrogating Personal Government: Violent

Language of M. Rochefort: Meeting of the New Chambers: In

quiry into the Validity of Elections-Progress of the Spanish
Revolution: Murder of Don Gutierrez de Castro: Meeting of the
Cortes: It affirms the Monarchical Principle: Serrano appointed
Regent: Prim wishes to offer the Crown to the Duke of Genoa :
The offer declined: Republican Risings: Eloquent Speech of
Señor Castelar - General Grant inaugurated President of the
United States.

THE new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lowe, brought forward his budget, in a speech of great ability, on the 8th April, 1869. The state of the revenue, he said, was moderately flourishing, although the receipts for the past financial year had fallen somewhat short (to the extent of about half a million) of Mr. Ward Hunt's estimate. His predecessor had calculated upon a revenue of £73,180,000, but the actual amount received did not quite reach £72,600,000. Passing now to the current year, Mr. Lowe estimated the expenditure at £68,223,000, and the revenue at £72,855,000, which would leave an available surplus of £4,632,000 at the end of the year. Nothing could be more satisfactory than such a prospect. Visions of a lowered income tax, of enlarged grants for special purposes, of general easiness in money matters, must have flitted before the minds of the assembled legislators. But Mr. Lowe had no sooner raised the hopes of his hearers than he dashed them to the ground. The whole of this large surplus, it appeared, except the trifling sum of £32,000, would be required to defray the cost of the Abyssinian expedition. The real cost of that expedition was now for the first time made known. Mr. Disraeli had asked for and obtained a vote of £3,000,000, in November, 1867, and a further sum of £2,000,000 had been voted for the expedition in the early part of the session of 1868. During 1868 every one supposed that £5,000,000 would cover the cost; but this was found to be by no means the case, and a third vote of £3,600,000 was taken in February, 1869. The total cost, Mr. Lowe feared, would hardly fall short of £9,000,000. Now, of the £3,600,000 that had been voted, ways and means had been found only for £4,000,000, so that £4,600,000

had still to be provided for. This sum would just be covered by the anticipated surplus, leaving a balance of £32,000.

Here an ordinary financier would have stopped, content to have balanced the revenue, and to have defrayed out of current receipts, so as not to add a penny to the National Debt, the heavy and unforeseen charges entailed by the Abyssinian expedition. But Mr. Lowe was not an ordinary financier, and, as a surplus did not exist, he resolved that one should be created. He proceeded to unfold a plan for the more economical collection of the revenue, by concentrating in one payment, to be made in January, the income tax and the assessed taxes, instead of dividing the former into two instalments, payable in April and October. This plan he proposed to bring into operation for the first time in January, 1870; so that (no collection being made in October, 1869) the taxes for three quarters, ending the 31st March, 1870, should be paid next January, in which month the whole of the income tax and the assessed taxes would have to be paid in future years. That is to say, Mr. Lowe proposed to collect five quarters' taxes within twelve months. The reader will think that it is not difficult to create a surplus in this way. Nevertheless, Mr. Lowe showed that the proposed change in the mode of collecting these taxes was based on common sense and sound economy, and that a sum of £100,000 would be saved merely by having one collection instead of two, and employing the Excise officials instead of amateur collectors. He also discussed the assessed taxes with great force and acuteness, and proposed to convert most of them into license duties, following the successful precedent of the dog tax, and that they should be payable for the future at the beginning of each year, instead of by two instalments in April and October. Assuming that the House adopted his scheme, Mr. Lowe calculated that before the end of the financial year (March 31, 1870) there would have been paid into the Exchequer £600,000 of the Excise licenses, £950,000 of the land tax and assessed taxes, and £1,800,000 of the income tax-in all £3,350,000—which, with the £32,000 surplus of revenue over expenditure, would put the Government in possession of a surplus of £3,382,000. How was this surplus (which Mr. Lowe might well describe as a "windfall") to be disposed of? As the chief inconvenience attending the transition from the semestrial to the annual method of payment would fall on the income tax payers, Mr. Lowe thought that they had the first claim to relief from the surplus; he therefore proposed to take off a penny from the income Next he proposed to abolish the import duty of one shilling on every quarter of corn, left by Sir Robert Peel when he repealed the Corn Laws in 1846. This duty, though it produced £900,000 a year, combined in Mr. Lowe's opinion all the bad qualities which a tax could possibly have, and prevented this country becoming a great entrepôt of corn. The fire insurance duties were also to be given up, though this reduction would not take effect till after Midsummer. The total remission of taxes thus foreshadowed would amount to £2,940,000, leaving, when deducted from the estimated surplus, a balance of

A.D. 1869.]

£442,000. Mr. Lowe admitted that his plan was attended by certain drawbacks. Under its operation the Treasury would be in a state of plethora at one part of the year and starved at another; and there might be taxpayers to whom the concentration and unification of the State's demands on their purses might be inconvenient. But he had various expedients in petto to meet the first objection, the chief among which was that during the non-productive months of the year the Government should be empowered to borrow at their discretion from the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt; while with regard to the second objection, the taxpayer, like the eel in the adage, would find the change nothing when he had become used to it. Mr. Lowe's budget was, of course, sharply criticised, and the delusive character of a surplus obtained by a financial trick was loudly insisted upon; but the real merits of the scheme, which were undoubtedly great, carried it through.

The statement made by Mr. Lowe, en passant, with regard to the aggregate expenditure on the Abyssinian expedition naturally attracted much attention. The Conservative Government had estimated that the total cost would not exceed £5,000,000; how then, when no unforeseen circumstance had occurred, none but the most shadowy opposition been encountered, and no reinforcements been needed, could the expenses have shot up to the enormous figure of £9,000,000? It appeared that by far the greater portion of the money-more than £7,000,000—had been spent by the Bombay Government. The duty of explanation accordingly fell on Sir Stafford Northcote, Secretary for India in the late Government. Sir Stafford Northcote stated that when the first estimate was framed (that for £3,000,000, laid before the House by Mr. Disraeli, in November, 1867), the expedition had not left India; and that the second estimate (for £2,000,000 additional) was necessarily vague and loose, and exceeded, in fact, the information furnished by the departments. He pointed out, among the reasons for the insufficiency of the estimate, our entire ignorance of the country into which the expedition was dispatched, its actual barrenness of supplies, and the necessity of taking precautions against events which never occurred. Much of the excess, he added, had arisen since the period up to which the estimate extended, and in conveying the troops from Abyssinia to India after the expedition was over. These explanations failed to remove the suspicion that there had been culpable laxity on the part of the Bombay Government. The suddenness of the last rise in the estimate was quite mysterious. Mr. Ward Hunt stated, in the discussion which took place in March, 1869, when the supplementary vote of £3,600,000 was demanded, that so recently as the 8th December, 1868, the Indian Government had telegraphed to this country that they had only spent £5,000,000.

Although the time of Parliament was too much taken up with discussions arising out of the Irish Church Act to allow of any comprehensive educational measure being brought forward in this session, yet an important Act was passed, by which a machinery fitted to grapple with the long-standing abuses connected with the endowed

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schools of the country was successfully established. The condition of these schools had lately been inquired into by a royal commission, the report of which had been laid before the House. Upon the basis of this report the Government was now prepared to legislate, and the duty of preparing a bill fell into the hands of Mr. W. E. Forster, the Vice-President of the Council. The recommendations of the commissioners had been of a very sweeping character; besides advising that full power of inquiring into the efficiency of every endowed school, and of putting an end to waste and abuse of trust funds, should be taken by the Government, they had recommended the formation of a central examining council, and the formation of provincial boards throughout the country under the control of the central authority. But the Government itself did not see its way to the appointment of provincial boards for the present; and the select committee to which the bill was referred, after the second reading, struck out all the clauses which proposed to constitute an examining council. What remained, however, of the bill was sufficient to make a useful working measure of reform.

In moving the second reading of the bill, Mr. Forster took occasion to explain in general terms the principal conclusions at which the Commission of Inquiry into Secondary Education, of which he had been himself a member, had arrived. In estimating the provision already existing in the country for the education of the "middle classes," the commissioners found that the schools which came under their observation naturally fell into three groups -denominated by them respectively first grade, second grade, and third grade schools, according to the age at which the scholars whom they instructed usually left them. In the first grade schools the average age of leaving was between eighteen and nineteen; in the second grade schools, between sixteen and seventeen; while in those of the third grade, constituting the immense majority in point of numbers, the age of leaving was about fourteen years. As a rule, the parents of boys in the first grade schools were persons of wealth, to whom money was little if at all an object in the education of their children. The schools themselves were pretty much on a par with the Public Schools, whose condition had been inquired into by a separate commission; and, as in the case of these, a considerable proportion of the scholars left school for the universities. Schools of the second grade were attended chiefly by the sons of professional persons, and of those engaged in commercial pursuits, whose sons were destined to follow similar avocations. In the third grade schools the scholars were found to be for the most part the sons of small farmers, small tradesmen and shopkeepers, and superior artisans. In the schools of all three grades a thorough education was found to be hardly ever imparted, except in Latin and Greek; and efficiency even in these branches was chiefly confined to schools of the first grade. Mr. Forster quoted the evidence of many competent witnesses who had been examined by the commission, to the effect that secondary education in England, considered as a preparation for any of the learned professions or for an industrial career laboured

sion that these schools, under their existing management, failed both to fulfil the intentions of their founders, and to satisfy the needs of society. In support of this conclusion, he adduced some curious evidence from the report of the commission. The head master of a certain endowed school told an assistant commissioner that "it was not worth his while to push the school, as with the endowment (about £200 a year) and some other small source of income, he had enough to live on comfortably without troubling to do so." In the case of another school, with on endowment of £651 per annum, the master put his

there were thirteen pupils. At another, enjoying an income of £792 from the charity, the head master taught three boarders and no others, and the under master attended when he chose. In a school where the endow ment was £300 a year and a house, one boy was found under instruction, while there was a private school with eighty boarders close by. To facts of this kind—lamentable as they were-Mr. Forster did not desire to attach undue weight; he did not conceal from the House that among the endowed schools of every grade many excellent and useful institutions might be found; but ho