Chapter I: Part I: The National Outlook (1)

HIGH POLITICS

The pageant of the Victorian age reached its grand climacteric in the period on which we now enter. As a "drum and trumpet chronicle" the history of the eighteen years from 1874 to 1892 was void of any British military operations on the grand scale. Of the names Kandahar, Maiwand, Isandhlwana, Majuba, Khartoum and Tel-el-Kebir only the first and last minister to our complacency. Yet the achievements of Lord Roberts in the two Afghan campaigns were splendid examples of bold leadership and British endurance, and Lord Wolseley's suppression of the revolt of Arabi was more than efficient. In the mid 'seventies Germany came perilously near forcing a fresh war on France; but the influence of the British Crown and Government was largely instrumental in averting the calamity. We were twice on the verge of war with Russia in 1878, first in April after the Treaty of San Stefano at the close of the Russo-Turkish war, and second in July over Russia's intervention in Afghanistan. The country was divided, for while there had been a revival of the old distrust of Russia, Gladstone had thrown the whole weight of his influence into the campaign of protest against the "Bulgarian atrocities." The Government, on the whole, steered a middle course between the "Jingoes" and those who supported Gladstone's "bag and baggage" policy towards the Turks. At the height of the Tory Press campaign against Russia, Lord Salisbury, in a speech in the City, observed: "It has been generally acknowledged to be madness to go to war for an idea, but it is yet more unsatisfactory to go to war against a nightmare." _Punch_, who was never pro-Russian, but at the moment was strongly anti-Turk, interpreted this saying as a caution against Jingo scaremongering.

In one of the earliest of his cartoons on the possibility of war over the Eastern question, he represented Disraeli standing on the edge of a precipice with Britannia, asking her to move "just a leetle nearer." Britannia declines to move one inch farther, adding, "I'm a good deal nearer than is pleasant already." But four months later, in May, 1878, when he showed Britannia between two advisers, Disraeli and Bright[1]--the former wearing a sword camouflaged with an olive wreath--_Punch_ supported neither, but applauded the third Voice, that of Neutrality. Professorial intervention he resented strongly; and severely rebuked Freeman, the historian, for a violent and unpatriotic speech. In fine, he was equally down on the blatant bunkum of the music-halls and the ill-considered agitation of fussy Pacificists; on War-Donkeys and Peace-Donkeys; "Asses are asses, whether bound in Lion or in Calf."

[Footnote 1: Bright had recently made a vehement speech at Manchester against the Turks. It was about the same time that he described Lord Salisbury as "prostrating his intellect (to Lord Beaconsfield) in hope of a succession that might never come."]

But if in Europe Great Britain never got beyond the stage of naval demonstrations and the summoning of troops from India, these eighteen years were not devoid of great as well as spectacular events. They opened with the triumphant return to power of Disraeli, admirably symbolized in Tenniel's great cartoon of the chariot driver and his fallen rival, and with his efforts to translate into practical politics his grandiose doctrines of Imperialism. He made the Queen Empress of India, he riveted our hold on the Suez Canal by the opportune purchase of the Khedive's shares in 1875; he claimed to have brought back "Peace with Honour" from the Berlin Congress of 1878, the year which marked the zenith of his power and the beginning of its decline. The twelve years that followed Gladstone's success at the polls in 1880 were crowded with momentous events; the rise and ferment of the new nationalities abroad; the advent of new champions and gladiators in the political arena at home--Parnell and Randolph Churchill and Chamberlain. In the sphere of domestic politics Ireland dominated the scene. Parliamentary obstruction was raised to a high art; the activities of the physical force extremists culminated in the tragedy of the Phoenix Park murders, and the history of the next few years is written in the two words Coercion and Conciliation, which split the Liberal Party, brought back the Conservatives to power in 1886, and under the Balfourian _régime_ restored a certain measure of peace and prosperity to Ireland. Lord Beaconsfield's "spirited foreign policy" had been largely reversed under Gladstone, and the results did not nourish our national pride. The handling of our frontier troubles in India had at least the support of some of the wisest Anglo-Indian experts, but our magnanimity to the Boers after Majuba was not merely open to the charge of craven-spiritedness, it paved the way to further troubles. It has been said that "any fool can annex"; but it needs a wise man to know when to grant autonomy. Moreover, the loyalty of Gladstone's supporters--including _Punch_--was strained to the uttermost by the disastrous failure of the attempt to relieve Gordon at Khartoum. The full knowledge now available makes it clear that Gordon's appointment was a risky experiment--that his judgment was not equal to his nobility of character--but the months and months of procrastination and vacillation, and the inadequacy of the relieving force when dispatched, cannot be explained away. It was just one of those situations which warranted the old gibe against Gladstone's "three courses." There were moments, and this was one of the most searching, in which he was mentally incapable of "seeing his duty, a dead sure thing" and going for it "there and then" in the way in which plain men with plain minds would have done.

An Imperial German Nursery Rhyme. (_From the Very latest edition of "Struwwelpeter."_)

WILFUL WILHELM: "Take the nasty _Punch_ away!
I won't have any _Punch_ to-day!"

Young Wilhelm was a wilful lad,
And lots of "cheek" young Wilhelm had.

He deemed the world should hail with joy
A smart and self-sufficient boy,

And do as it by _him_ was told;
He _was_ so wise, he _was_ so bold.

]

When we add to this brief summary the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, the passing of Lord Beaconsfield and Bright among the elder statesmen, and the tragic eclipse of Parnell, it will be seen that there was enough and more than enough to engage the pen and pencil of _Punch_ as a political and social chronicler. Mention has already been made of our thorny relations with Russia. With regard to Germany, the attitude of England might be described as one of reluctant admiration punctuated by moments of misgiving. These moments were not infrequent in the days of the old Emperor; they ceased during the brief reign of his son, only to recur in a more acute form when Kaiser Wilhelm II "dropped the pilot," made it clear that he intended not only to rule but govern, and by his meteoric versatility and frequent references to his divine mission and to the Germans as the chosen race, awakened the world to the emergence of a new and formidable promoter of European unrest. Our relations with France were correct rather than cordial; her _rapprochement_ with Russia did not make for popularity on this side of the Channel; but in the main English observers read the inner meaning of the Boulanger episode aright, and without exactly exulting over his collapse, were relieved by his failure to revive a military dictatorship.

By way of filling in this rough outline with more detail, we may note that Gladstone's resignation of the Liberal leadership at the close of 1874 was regarded by _Punch_ as premature. In one of the first cartoons in the next year Dizzy is shown saying good-bye to his great antagonist: "Sorry to lose you! I _began_ with books; you're _ending_ with them. Perhaps you're the wiser of the two." Perhaps he would have been--in the ultimate verdict of posterity--had his decision been final. But _Punch_ was right in regarding Gladstone as an unspent force, and in his regretful and affectionate farewell clearly indicates a hope of his return:--

Will he who, from Llandudno's calm retreat
Late burst, at once, on battle and defeat,
Will he, though Harcourt gird, and Granville pray,
Himself the Leader's truncheon fling away,
Still in his prime of power, unbent by years,
Renounce the joy of battle with his peers,
Unmoved by _Punch's_ counsel, or his prayer,
Nor to his realm relinquished name an heir?

[Sidenote: _The New Shepherd_]

Lord Hartington, moved by public spirit rather than ambition or enthusiasm, undertook what in the circumstances was the far from enviable task of leading the Liberals. _Punch_ hit off the situation truly enough in the cartoon in which Bright hands the crook of leadership to the "New Shepherd"--and Hartington in his smock-frock replies, "Hey, but Measter!--Where be the sheep?"

The parallel is followed up in the doggerel lines:--

The Marquis Bo-Peep
Herds the Liberal Sheep--
If he only knew where to find them.
Will they ever come home
And--please Home Rule and Rome--
Bring their Irish tails behind them?

_Punch_, always concerned with the dignity of the Mother of Parliaments, was from the very outset exasperated by the increasing levity and obstructiveness of the new House. The levity he satirized in a series of burlesque entertainments with Mr. Whalley as call-boy and Dr. Kenealy as gasman. Dr. Kenealy's efforts to re-open the Tichborne case ended in absurdity--his motion being supported by only two members, Mr. Whalley and Major O'Gorman, that gigantic playboy of the West.[2] Obstruction, another and far more serious matter, was soon organized into a science, and led to repeated scenes of which more anon. Of the new Ministers, Mr. Ward Hunt, the First Lord, was especially singled out for attack because of his cavalier treatment of the loss of the _Vanguard_ and the Admiralty's Fugitive Slave Circulars. _A propos_ of the former, _Punch_ represented Neptune warning Britannia that there would be a row if she did not rule the waves properly. The Fugitive Slave question led to protracted debates and much hostile criticism. In October, 1875, a cartoon shows a slave crawling on board a British warship and clinging to the flagstaff, while Ward Hunt, popping up from the companion, observes: "A runaway slave, John. You'll have to give him up, you know! See our Circular of July 31." John Bull retorts: "Give 'im up, yer Honour!! As well order me to haul down that there flag at once!!!" A fortnight later Ward Hunt is made to reply to his friend _Punch_:--

We haven't hauled down the British Flag
(See one of your recent productions),
But we've chosen the other alternative--
We've hauled down our Mis-instructions.

[Footnote 2: Major O'Gorman does not appear in the D.N.B. But he inspired an immortal comment from a sympathetic compatriot, who calling to inquire about the Major's progress during a serious illness, was told that he was being kept up by periodic teaspoonfuls of brandy. "Tayspoons!" was the indignant retort. "And what use 'ud a tayspoon be, sthrayin' about in such a wilderness of a man?"]

_Punch's_ view, expressed in comments on the debate in the following February, was that the matter should be left in the discretion of captains--as it had been for thirty-six years. He declared, not without reason, that both circulars were virtually dead, and that the country would not stand them. Meanwhile the growth of the German Navy, which in his earlier years _Punch_ had persistently ridiculed and belittled, had begun to excite attention and misgiving; _Punch_, though a Liberal, was a "big Navy" man, and, early in 1875, was concerned with the dangers of our falling behind in the race of naval armaments:--

RULE, GERMANIA!

_The Times_ informs us that, of "iron-clad cruisers of the strongest type, Germany will, in the present year, have seven built against five of our own navy." The _Pall Mall Gazette_ is of opinion that "the Germans have too many irons in the political fire to give exclusive attention to any one of them."

But very soon, unless we get beforehand with the Germans, will they not have too many irons in the water, too?

DIZZY: "Bulgarian Atrocities! I can't find them in the Official Reports'!!!"]

The restoration of the monarchy in Spain under Alfonso XII, in the same year, also gave _Punch_ occasion for serious thought. We may pass over the cartoon representing John Bull's anxiety about Spanish bonds as a satire on British commercialism. But there is shrewd political insight in the picture of Alfonso between two fires--Bismarck and the Pope. The German Chancellor makes his support conditional on the withdrawal of the anti-Protestant edicts; while the Pope, on the other hand, maintains the claims of his Church.

In 1876 the Queen assumed the title of Empress of India; Disraeli went to the Lords as Earl of Beaconsfield, Sir Stafford Northcote succeeding him as Leader of the House of Commons; and the "Bulgarian Atrocities" proved the first phase in the conflict which made the Balkans the cockpit of Europe for over forty years. _Punch_ did not cavil at Disraeli's earldom, though he thought his refusal of the Garter in 1878 well calculated rather than modest. He suggests, moreover, that Earl of Coningsby would have been a better title; and in the cartoon headed, "Empress and Earl, or One Good Turn deserves Another," shows Dizzy kneeling to the Queen and saying, "Thank your Majesty! I might have had it before! _Now_ I think I have _earned_ it!" More sympathetic are the verses in which _Punch_ describes the realization of Disraeli's triple dream of success in Fashion, Letters and Politics--the dream that inspired him when he was only an articled clerk and a Jew boy:--

After forty years' fighting, he steps from the fire
To the height scarcely scaled in his Old Jewry dream;
Adds a third to his two wreaths of boyish desire,
Though sore set against him the stress of the stream.

And all who can honour faith, patience, and power
And the strenuous purpose that runs a life through
Like a muscle of iron, are glad of the hour
That sees his hand close on the honour his due!

Mr. Gladstone was now employing his leisure by felling trees at Hawarden, and the contrast lent point to one of Tenniel's happiest cartoons--that of "The Earl and the Woodman"; Disraeli, in his earl's robes and coronet, contemplates Gladstone arrayed _à la_ Watteau, and observes with emotion: "How happy is this blithe peasant, whilst I, alas!----" (Dissembles.) _Punch_, however, was becoming more sceptical of the genuineness of Gladstone's desire for retirement, and in a parody of "You are old, Father William," scouts the notion of his prematurely posing as a Nestor.

THE BRITISH LION: "Look here! I don't understand _you_!--But it's right you should understand _me_! _I don't fight to uphold what's going on yonder!!_"]

The Balkan trouble led to a violent conflict of public opinion in which _Punch_ sided whole-heartedly with Gladstone against those, and they were many, who upheld the traditional view of the "Gentlemen's party," that the Turk was the only "gentleman" in the Near East, and that he might do what he liked with his own. Disraeli's scepticism; his professed inability to find any "atrocities" in official reports; and his dismissal as "coffee-house babble" of evidence brought by a Bulgarian to a vice-Consul, roused _Punch's_ indignation against the Premier and his official informants. It was a "hideous subject" of which Government had heard a good deal and was likely to hear a good deal more:--

Let _Punch_ speak his mind in this matter. Political partisanship and
party spirit are both at low, as well as lukewarm, water in England
just now; but, if anything will fire John Bull's blood to fever heat,
it is such horrors as have been perpetrated in Bulgaria--and part
of his wrath will assuredly be visited on those who have striven to
interpose official blinds or buffers between England and the sight
or shock of these horrors.... The head of Her Majesty's Opposition
asserted for the Newspaper Correspondents the credit which English
common sense and experience unite to claim for them.

Contemporary records--including the files of _Punch_--do not bear out the statement about the lukewarmness of party spirit. The country was acutely divided, and dissatisfaction with Sir H. Elliot, our Ambassador at Constantinople, prompted _Punch's_ retort, when Lord Beaconsfield declared that the Bulgarian atrocities were "beyond recall," "Yes, but your Ambassador isn't." Gladstone is rebuked for hiding in his tent; but he made amends by launching his famous, though sadly premature, phrase about clearing the Turk out of Europe, "bag and baggage."

[Sidenote: _Neutrality under Difficulties_]

Serbia's resistance was soon overcome, but the Powers forced Turkey to grant her an armistice, and largely through Great Britain's influence, a Conference was held at Constantinople where Lord Salisbury was our representative. A short breathing-space was thus gained, but the Conference was abortive, and war between Russia and Turkey broke out in 1877. _Punch_ was in rather a delicate position: for while distinctly anti-Turk, he had never trusted Russia. Thus, while assailing the _Daily Telegraph_, _Pall Mall Gazette_ and _Morning Post_ for their Chauvinism, and the Tory press generally for their campaign against Russia and their support of the "veracious Turk," he was hardly less severe in his strictures on the belligerent humanitarians who would have welcomed pro-Russian intervention. _Punch_ advocated neutrality, but he was fully alive to the difficulties of the situation, and expressed them in a cartoon in which the British Lion is exhibited in a bothered mood, distrustful of Russia, and unable to make out what the Government meant, or the Opposition either. In his comments on the debate on Mr. Gladstone's resolution, _Punch_ deplores the weakness and dissensions of the Opposition and supports the bolder spirits. Many years were to elapse before Lord Salisbury made his remarkable speech about our having "backed the wrong horse," i.e. Turkey, in the Crimean War. That speech proved that _Punch_ was fully justified in seizing on the caution which the same speaker had given nearly twenty years earlier. For Lord Salisbury declared in 1897 that the defence of the diplomacy of 1878 lay in its traditional character, not in its inherent excellence, and that neither he nor Lord Beaconsfield was free from misgivings as to its results. The music halls have not often enriched the language with permanent additions, but they added "Jingo" and "Jingoism" in 1877. _Punch's_ comment on Macdermott's famous song is instructive. It was inspired by a reference in the Paris _Figaro_:--

On the back page of the _Figaro_ is given one verse in English, with
the music, of that "War Song" of the Music Halls, which just now
enjoys its share of popularity with "_Nancy Lee_," and "_Jeremiah,
Blow the Fire_," and a translation of the whole song into French, of
which the _Figaro_ says apologetically, "_Des vers français n'auraient
pu arriver à la sauvage énergie de l'original_." The chorus of the
song, as sung by most of our London street-boys, instead of "_They all
do it_," and "_Woa Emma_," recently shelved, is this:--

"We don't want to fight, but by Jingo if we do," etc. And the
translation, which "_n'aurait pu arriver à la sauvage énergie de
l'original_," is:

"_Nous ne voulons pas la guerre, mais, par Dieu! si nous combattons_,"
etc.

If "_par Dieu_!" is not to an Englishman's thinking rather more
savagely energetic than "By Jingo!" then words are meaningless. If
"_par Dieu_!" is to be accepted as an equivalent, and as, after all,
rather a weak equivalent for "by Jingo!" then either the Frenchman
has a very low idea of the Englishman's religion, or his "_Dieu_"
means nothing more, ordinarily, than our "Jingo." But "Jingo" is not
a savagely energetic exclamation, nor is the true feeling of this
country to be gauged by the popularity of a Music-Hall song.

_Punch_ was both right and wrong. The music halls are not a true index of the political sagacity of the country; but he did not foresee that the refrain of this particular song would survive, by virtue of its very blatancy, as a terse summary of national complacency. At the same time he paid homage to its merits by printing a neat Latin rendering from the pen of an Etonian:--

_Inviti quamquam saevo confligere bello,
Adsit opus, Jingo testamur Bellipotentem,
Sunt nobis nummi, sunt agmina, tela, carinae._

[Sidenote: _Indian Troops in Europe_]

The intervention of amateur diplomatists, clerical or professorial, however well-meant, was firmly and impolitely discouraged when Turkey and Russia were at death grips at Plevna. Early in 1878 _Punch_ endeavoured to turn such efforts into ridicule, as instances of "self-election of the unfittest." Still the naval demonstration in Besika Bay found _Punch_ in his most pacific mood, applauding Lord Carnarvon, who with Lord Derby had resigned, and condemning Lord Beaconsfield's dangerous action and unconvincing explanations. The calling out of the Reserves still further increased _Punch's_ anxiety, and inspired a "Proclamation" calling for self-restraint. When it was announced that Carlyle had joined Bright and the Duke of Westminster in signing a petition against war, _Punch_ noted that the old sage of Chelsea was anything but a lover of peace at any price. But the incident which perturbed him and other critics of the Government more than anything else was the bringing of a contingent of Indian troops to Europe. _Punch_ vigorously supported Gladstone, who held the action of the Government to be not merely provocative but unconstitutional. When the troops were re-shipped to India, he published a sarcastic inscription, to be engraved on a monument on Primrose Hill commemorating an exploit which had cost £750,000. It seems a little sum to us with our profligate habit of thinking in millions, but the frugal taxpayer of the 'seventies, as represented by _Punch_, thought it a monstrous extravagance. The inscription is too long to quote in its entirety, but we may give the peroration:--

So, having more than fulfilled
The Expectations of those who imported them
And who, after having transferred them to Cyprus,
Found themselves considerably embarrassed
What next to do with them,
They were re-shipped, quietly and unobtrusively,
To the general mystification of Europe
For the Land of their Birth;
Whence,
Though they have merited the Admiration of Some
And the Respect of Many,
And have left behind them
An Election Cry to All,
It is to be hoped that they will never again visit
The Western Dominions of their Imperial Mistress
Who, through the mouth of _Punch_
Gladly bids them _Adieu_!
Not _Au Revoir_.

_Heu vatum ignarae mentes!_ But _Punch_, who printed this acid _jeu d'esprit_ on August 3, 1878, could hardly be expected to foresee the need of August 4, 1914.

The year 1878 marked the zenith of Lord Beaconsfield's prestige, for it was the year of the Berlin Congress--from which he claimed to have brought back "Peace with Honour"--and of the annexation of Cyprus. _Punch_, however, was always suspicious of Dizzy's phrases and preferred to symbolize the results of the Congress in a _Pas de Deux_ by Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, both Gartered, and in a rhymed dialogue complacently referring to their egg-dance. The Afghan trouble was assuming a menacing aspect, finely typified in Charles Keene's cartoon, "The Shadow on the Hills." _Punch_ applauded vigilance, but distrusted the Government's intentions, deprecated the spirited policy which involved "a vague and boundless adventure of annexation," and showed Lord Beaconsfield leading John Bull by the nose in search of a "scientific frontier"--another Disraelian phrase--and the Ameer of Afghanistan, between the Bear and the Lion, exclaiming, "Save me from my friends."

The Transvaal had been annexed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in the previous year, but _Punch_ had received Lord Carnarvon's announcement with acquiescence rather than enthusiasm.

[Sidenote: _Bismarck's Creed_]

On the other hand, the visit of the Australian cricket team in 1878 furnished him with an occasion for paying tribute to the progress and enlightenment of the Colonies and acknowledging England's debt to their loyalty.

The services of King Edward as a promoter of the _Entente_ with France date back to the same year, in which as Prince of Wales he is represented in a _Pas de Trois_ with the Republic and Marshal MacMahon. _Punch_ applauded the visit, but rebuked the flunkeyism of the accounts given by the Paris correspondent of _The Times_. For the moment Germany's home rather than her foreign policy engrossed attention, for this was the time of the _Kulturkampf_ and the campaign against Socialism. Bismarck is shown in one cartoon squeezing down the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box. These repressive measures were deprecated by _Punch_, and a few months later he commented ironically on Bismarck's _rapprochement_ with the Papacy, the cartoon "Of one mind (for once!)" showing Bismarck and the Pope barring the door against Socialism and Democracy. The reminiscences of the notorious Dr. Busch had appeared, and _Punch_ based on them a bitter set of verses, "The Pious Chancellor's Creed," adapted from one of Lowell's _Biglow Papers_:--

I do believe in subtle skill
Disguised as brutal frankness;
And the display of ruthless will
In rowdy _Reiter_-rankness.
As well shirk shedding blood for fear
Of staining God's pure daisies,
As strive to rule this lower sphere
By sentimental phrases.

I hold the great Germanic race
Is Heaven's favourite bantling,
Supreme in virile power and grace
And breadth of moral scantling.
The Franks are hounds, their women pigs
Gr-r-r! I the vain vile vermin hate!
I'd squelch them--but for pap-soul'd prigs
Who funk the word exterminate.

Bismarck was alive and formidable. Thiers and Pio Nono passed away in 1877 and 1878. The services of the French Statesman are tersely summed up in the stanza:--

Monarchy loving much, he loved yet more
The realm, whoe'er its badge of headship wore;
And, waiving self, was willing to abide
That rule which Frenchmen would the least divide.

In the accompanying cartoon France is seen laying a wreath on the tomb inscribed "_Libérateur de la Patrie, 1872_," while the shades of monarchists and Communards are seen in the background. The tribute to Pius IX is kindly but not uncritical. He had outlived the patriotic Liberalism of his younger self:--

Happy that one thing he did _not_ outlive,
The charitable soul, the kindly heart,
That rigid dogma's slaves could scarce forgive,
Fearing lest he might play them Balaam's part,

And bless whom he should curse; and so they drew
Their bonds about him closer day by day
Living or dying, till no will he knew
But theirs, and as they pointed, marked the way.

In Home Politics Ireland largely dominated the scene during the latter half of the Beaconsfield administration. As early as 1876 _Punch_ had dealt faithfully with the plea advanced on behalf of political prisoners in the following caustic argument:--

Killing is no murder if complicated with treason. That renders it
a mere misdemeanour. A military offence, simply capital, becomes a
minor offence when treasonable besides. Treason is an extenuating
circumstance of mutiny and murder, and its commission in committing
those crimes reduces murderers and mutineers to political offenders.
Therefore, instead of being hanged or shot, they ought, if punished at
all, and not, on the contrary, rewarded, to be condemned to nothing
worse than temporary seclusion, and should, all of them, after a
merely nominal imprisonment, be respectfully released.

[Sidenote: _Obstruction and the Remedy_]

This was a logical and ironical _reductio ad absurdum_; yet _Punch_ lived to see it translated into practical politics forty years later. In 1877 the scientific obstruction practised by the Irish Party in the House of Commons prompted a whole series of cartoons. In one Parnell, Biggar and Callan appear as "Erin's Three Graces." In another a drove of Irish pigs (including Whalley) are shown blocking the railway line of Parliament. In a third _Punch_ bids schoolmaster Northcote to take down not the words, but something else of the obstructives. Commenting on the twenty-six hours' sitting in July, 1877, in which the House was held up by a group of obstructives that never rose above seven, _Punch_ observes:--

Four Chairmen--Raikes, Childers, Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson, and W. H.
Smith--were used up in the night-watches, and the House was kept, by
relays, against the "Dauntless Three"--for Gray, Callan, Nolan and
Kirk are but recruits to the banner of Biggar, Parnell and O'Donnell,
the standard-bearers of Obstruction. All pretence of argument was
early abandoned; and it became a mere contest of endurance, varied
by episodes of more or less--generally less--lively squabbling and
chaff--if such a word may be used of anything that passes in the
august Temple of Legislation. All this while the new Standing Orders
seemed, by tacit consent, set aside; and Parnell, Biggar and O'Donnell
moved the Chairman out of the Chair, or report of progress, again and
again. And yet the Leader of the House had the rod of suspension in
his hand, though he forbore to use it, preferring the _reductio ad
absurdum_ of such a night's match between the toughness of the House
and the tenacity of its Obstructives. Once only he went so far as
to threaten more summary proceedings, on which, they say, O'Donnell
collapsed. Of course, the great O denies it.

But why, _Punch_ must again ask, allow debates to be degraded to
a farce, and the House to a bear-garden? Go to his Cartoon, ye
squeamish, and be wise. With the rod in the Speaker's hands, it is
not the Obstructives' _words_ that _Punch_ would have taken down. The
House sat from four o'clock on Tuesday till six on Wednesday.

The announcement of Mr. Gladstone's visit to Ireland later on in the year prompted a burlesque account of what his omniscience and omnivorous thirst for information would enable him to achieve. Nor could _Punch_ be moved to treat seriously O'Donovan Rossa's threat to introduce osmic acid--a forerunner of tear-shells--into the House of Commons. But it was beginning to be difficult to joke about Ireland, and there was grim point in Keene's picture of the native reassuring the English angler who hadn't a licence for salmon: "Sure ye might kill a man or two about here an' nobody'd say a word t'ye."

SAXON ANGLER: "Oh, but I can't try for a salmon, I haven't got a licence."

NATIVE: "Is it a licence ye want to kill a fish? Sure ye might kill a man or two about here an' nobody'd say a word t'ye."]

The death of Isaac Butt in the spring of 1879 marked the final close of the moderate stage of Parliamentary agitation; the reins of leadership had already passed into the hands of a bolder, more masterful and uncompromising chief--the "uncrowned King," as he was called, till the days of Committee Room 15. Moreover, discontent was aggravated by genuine distress in the South and West of Ireland, and here, unfortunately, benevolence was hampered by party politics, for the violent speeches made by Parnell in America at the close of 1879 were not exactly designed to assist the Duchess of Marlborough's Relief Fund. According to _Punch_, however, in his comments on "Irish Obstructives to Irish Aid," these speeches failed to influence the American public:--

[Sidenote: _The Zulu War_]

Uncle Sam is showing his sense by sending his liberal contributions
in relief of Irish distress through all channels except the cruelly
warped ones of Messrs. Parnell and Dillon. The arch-agitator has the
impudence to accuse the Duchess of Marlborough's and all other relief
agencies, except his own, of political bias. This is the Gracchi
complaining of sedition with a vengeance! Pigs, we know, cut their
own throats in trying to keep their heads above water. This Irish
Mis-leader seems involuntarily to be imitating the short-sighted Irish
animal. If any man _could_ have frozen the current of charity--in
New World and Old--it would be such a bitter and malignant advocate
of mutual hate, civil strife, anarchy, and insecurity of life and
property, as CHARLES STEWART PARNELL.

Ireland was only one of many embarrassments to the Beaconsfield administration in its closing years. Early in that year _Punch_ published a cartoon on "Bull and his burdens"--John Bull as a patient ox carrying Russia; the Ameer; the Turk; a Glasgow Bank Director (commemorating a recent discreditable financial disaster); a striker; and last of all a Zulu jumping on behind. For this was the year of the unhappy Zulu war, which _Punch_ described as "one of the costliest blunders of modern times"--it cost ten millions--and again as "alike unnecessary, costly, and disastrous." He saw in Isandhlwana not merely a tragedy but a lesson, and enforced it in a cartoon showing a Zulu warrior writing on a slate, "Despise not your enemy." The accompanying verses, while deprecating rashness, assert that the dead must be honoured and avenged. The heroes of Rorke's Drift, Chard and Bromhead, are duly acclaimed, but _Punch_, true to an old and honourable tradition, prints a letter on behalf of the non-combatant officers who gallantly took part in the defence. As the only rampart which they had was made of meal-bags, _Punch_ ingeniously applies to them the phrase, "_Couvert de gloire et de farine_," which Voltaire had used of Frederick the Great, who spent his first battle sheltering in a mill behind sacks of flour. Cetewayo, the Zulu chieftain, was subsequently captured, brought to London and lionized, _Punch_ observing that "the great Farini [the _impresario_ who introduced Zazel, the acrobat who was shot from a cannon] suggests that he should be exhibited at the Aquarium."

Throughout the war and afterwards _Punch_ was a harsh and ungenerous critic of the policy of Sir Bartle Frere, whom he regarded as a prancing proconsul and nothing more. Nor was _Punch_ much happier in his treatment of the painful episode of the death of the Prince Imperial who, whether owing to his own rashness or the negligence or loss of nerve of his escort, fell to the assegais of the Zulus. _Punch's_ inveterate anti-Imperialism is betrayed even in the memorial verses:--

Talk not of plots and plans that, ripening slow,
Are by this death struck down with blast and blight;
We have no thought but for that mother's woe,
The darkness of that childless widow's night.

Unfortunately, the raising of the question of a memorial to the Prince in Westminster Abbey induced _Punch_ to abandon his resolve of reticence, and prompted other "thoughts," which he expressed with more vigour than good taste. There is no proof that the suggestion emanated from Dean Stanley, as _Punch_ implies, though the Dean certainly favoured a proposal for which a strong precedent could be found in the burial in Henry VII's chapel of the Duc de Montpensier (the younger brother of Louis Philippe) who died an exile in England in 1807. Public opinion was divided, but democratic sentiment prevailed, and in deference to a hostile vote in the Commons the scheme was withdrawn.

[Sidenote: _Turnerelli's "Tribute"_]

The waning splendours of the Beaconsfield _régime_ were not revived by the launching of one of the last of his phrases, "_Imperium et Libertas_." _Punch_ only saw in it "the catchword of a self-seeking swaggerer." Great men suffer much at the hands of injudicious admirers, and the "People's Tribute" to Lord Beaconsfield organized by an amiable enthusiast, heavily weighted by the unpropitious name of Tracy Turnerelli, must have been a sore trial to the Premier, while it supplied _Punch_ with food for mirth for the best part of a year. The subscriptions of the million were invited to purchase a gold wreath, but after a little while Mr. Turnerelli had to appeal for further funds to clear off a deficit. Later on, when the Tribute had been finally refused by Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Turnerelli offered to hand over the wreath to one of our great national museums, if a suitable case were provided. He also suggested that he might be reimbursed for his out-of-pocket expenses in getting up the Tribute. _Punch_ recommended that he should pocket the affront and hand over the "Tribute" to Madame Tussaud's, where he had already appeared in wax. This is what actually happened, and in November, 1879, _Punch_ sardonically records the fulfilment of his suggestion.

(_After B. R. Haydon._)]

The disquieting news from the Afghan frontier led to a serious attack on the Government early in 1880, an attack in which _Punch_ vigorously joined, publishing a list of questions all animated by misgiving and by distrust of Lord Beaconsfield's phrases and Lord Lytton's policy and silence. The tension was relieved by Lord Roberts' famous march to Kandahar, and on his return to England in the autumn _Punch_ represented him as snowed under by invitations to complimentary banquets, and invoked the shade of Wellington to congratulate him on his celerity. Meanwhile, however, Parliament had been dissolved in March, and the verdict of 1874 completely reversed at the General Election. _Punch_ hailed Gladstone triumphing with his axe over Lord Dalkeith, and borne aloft on a shield by Harcourt, Hartington, and Bright, under the heading, "Hail to the Chief." As a pendant we have the cartoons in which Lord Beaconsfield is eclipsed by the sun of Liberalism or watches the sinking of the sun of Popularity, and the verses in which the parting Sphinx soliloquizes on his methods of leadership--appeals to sentiment and passion and the deft use and reiteration of phrases which intoxicate the masses.

When the House reassembled, it was to find the Irish Question still further complicated by the activities of the Land League and the No Rent Campaign. There was also another burning question--that of the Parliamentary Oath--which the return of Mr. Bradlaugh made a matter of urgency. _Punch_, as the "sturdiest of Protestants, was perforce the staunch supporter of the right of private judgment which is the corner-stone of Protestantism." Also he frankly admitted that he had no desire to see Mr. Bradlaugh made a martyr. His point of view is developed with refreshing common sense in the following argument:--

The House has swallowed such a succession of camels, Quakers and
Separatists, Moravians and Jews, Latitudinarians and Platitudinarians,
Unitarians and Humanitarians, Anythingarians and Nothingarians, and
now it is straining over such a gnat as poor Mr. Bradlaugh, natural
representative of the Northampton Shoemakers, who object to the
immortality of the Sole, and spell the word indifferently with or
without a "u" and an "e."

The time has surely passed when the House should seek shelter against
objectionable beliefs or unbeliefs, behind such delusive defences as
oaths and tests. "Let the Swearers swear, and the Sayers say," the Law
has proclaimed, in all Courts. Why, then, not in the High Court of
Parliament--the Court of Courts--the very conduit and fountain-head of
Law?

[Sidenote: _Irish Troubles_]

Unluckily the collective wisdom of the House was slow to accept this view, and the inevitable conclusion was only arrived at after a great expenditure of time and a great loss of temper. Bradlaugh was ejected and finally admitted; but the pacification of Ireland seemed farther off than ever. Gladstone was anxious to proceed with the further instalment of his policy of conciliation inaugurated by the Disestablishment of the Irish Church in his previous administration, but _Punch_ summed up his difficulties pretty accurately in the cartoon of November 20, 1880, in which Law tells Liberty to wait until Ireland first learned to respect her. _Punch_ regarded the Land League as sheer anarchy; it was the League and not the Government who practised Coercion. He summoned up the shade of Dan O'Connell to condemn outrages and the tyranny of "Captain Moonlight." But posthumous evocations are seldom of any avail; and O'Connell's was no longer a name to conjure with. In the year 1880, "Boycott" ceased to be a surname, and became an engine of political intimidation, while in the House obstructionist methods continued, culminating in the suspension of some thirty Irish M.P.s _en masse_ early in 1881. Irish "scenes" were frequent and only excited _Punch's_ disgust. At the same time he administered a severe rap over the knuckles to the "Honourable the Irish Society of London" for maladministering their funds, pauperizing prosperous towns and neglecting to subsidize deserving poverty or encourage Irish industries. The appeal to the Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke of Connaught to visit Ireland, signed, "Larry Doolan of the Irish Jaunting Car," is shorn of all its cogency by the Transpontine Donnybrook Fair language in which it is couched. _Punch_ has been a frequent offender in this respect; and also in his representations of the Irish peasant. It did not really help the cause of Unionism to portray Fenians and Land Leaguers with baboon-like faces. Dan O'Connell, whom _Punch_ again evoked from the shades, this time to play Virgil to Gladstone's Dante in the Irish "Inferno," though he was a potato-faced Irishman, would have resented this method of criticism. As a matter of fact, _Punch_ was so seriously remonstrated with for his Irish cartoons that he published a long article in self-defence and justification of his methods, maintaining that he never hit the weaker side because it _was_ the weaker side, but because that side at the time appeared to be in the wrong:--

"Death, violent death, and painful wounds upon his neighbour he inflicts; and wastes, by devastation, pillage, and the flames, his substance."--Dante, Canto XI.]

[Sidenote: _Punch and Ireland_]

The Ogreish character is the embodiment of the spirit of Lawlessness, of Anarchy, and of that Communism which, by its recent No Rent manifesto, has now drawn down upon itself the just condemnation of such men as the Archbishops of Dublin and Cashel. Houghing and mutilating dumb animals, maiming men and women, and shooting defenceless victims, are ugly crimes, and the embodiment of them in one single figure cannot be made too hideous or too repulsive. On the other hand, _Punch_ has consistently and persistently kept before the public his ideal classic figure of Hibernia, graceful, gentle, tender, loving but "distressful," as being more or less in fear of that Ogre, her evil genius, from whose bondage may she soon be free; and then, mistress of herself, with peace and plenty in her land, blessed with wise Administration and Local Government, in happy and unbroken union with her sister, England, with a regal residence in her midst, may she see the emerald gem of the Western World set glittering in the crown of one who will be no longer a stranger.

_Punch_ was moved to return to the subject in September, 1882, in order to repel the attacks made on him by the _Spectator_ and the _Nineteenth Century_. The latter had not been sparing of rebuke:--

"No savages have ever been so mercilessly held up to loathing mockery
as the Irish peasants by the one comic paper in Europe which has been
most honourably distinguished for its restraint and decorum and good
nature."

Here the defence takes the form of an imaginary trial before L.J. Public Opinion, in which Hibernia gives evidence in _Punch's_ favour on the strength of cartoons published from 1844 onwards. Of course, _Punch_ is acquitted and pronounced to have triumphantly refuted a calumnious attack. This much, however, must be admitted to _Punch's_ credit, that he did not regard the campaign of outrage and defiance of the Law in Ireland as a reason for withholding remedial legislation, but supported Gladstone's measures designed to promote a settlement of the Land question.

Over the war with the Transvaal in 1881 _Punch_ found it hard to find the _justum medium_. The true estimate of the situation was no more to be found in the view of the "excellent law-abiding people who would send off a British army of 15,000 men to crush out a rebellious enterprise," than in the demands of the enthusiastic humanitarians who would give "a struggling community their legitimate liberty." _Punch_ frankly admitted that the Boers had been brutal to the natives, had shown an inability to govern themselves, and by their unfitness either to establish or extend civilization had almost jeopardized the hold of the white man on South Africa altogether. Yet he supported the Boers in their contention that the Proclamation of Sir Theophilus Shepstone in 1877 was invalid. There was wrong and right upon both sides. Writing in January, 1881, he expressed the hope that a pacific settlement might be arrived at by a Cabinet "not deficient either in the ready pluck which deals with pressing danger or the quieter courage that is not afraid of timely compromise." These hopes were not fulfilled, and _Punch's_ confidence in the pluck and courage of the Gladstone Cabinet was severely shaken in 1884 and 1885. In 1881 he was hardly a true interpreter of public opinion in his comments on the disaster of Majuba, when he excused the British defeat by the valour of the Boers. The cartoon, "_Fas est et ab Hoste_," and the verses on the inadequacy of our military training, rubbed in the lessons of the war with more point than consideration. The sequel of Majuba humiliated the majority of Englishmen: and the policy of compromise and concession failed to achieve a lasting settlement.

Lord Beaconsfield died in the spring, but _Punch_, though respectful and appreciative, added little in his memorial tribute to what he had said on many previous occasions in the way of criticism and eulogy. The insecurity of Russian rule had a year previously been recognized in a cartoon representing Nihilism lighting a torch in a cavern beneath the throne. The assassination of the Tsar Alexander II prompts an appeal to the "Northern Terror." Ordered Liberty must disown such fiendish methods. _Punch_, no lover of autocracy, admits that the Tsar was "the gentlest of his line," and implores the Russians to put manhood in their wrath, and "not foul the work they call divine with demon ruthlessness," an appeal that still remains unanswered. This was the year in which another, but an uncrowned Head, was laid low in President Garfield, and the loss of the United States is recognized as a common sorrow.

BOER (to F.-M. H.R.H. the Commander-in-Chief): "I say, Dook! You don't happen to want a practical 'musketry instructor', do you?"]

In Home politics no one is more frequently or unflatteringly referred to than Lord Randolph Churchill. Sambourne's "Fancy Portrait" represents him as a midge: in verse, bitter and derisive, he is dubbed "the coming mannikin." On the other hand, Mr. Balfour is welcomed as an accession of strength to his party, and his wit is commended as being no less pretty than his uncle's, though less explosive in its flashing forth. To this year also belongs the reaction of "Fair" against "Free" Trade; and the adoption of the new cry by Lord Randolph and Mr. James Lowther, amongst others, is alluded to in a parody of a once popular drawing-room song, "O Fair Dove, O Fond Dove." But these amenities and trivialities were soon forgotten. In May, 1882, came the terrible tragedy of the Phoenix Park murders--the first deliberate political assassinations that had stained our history for centuries--and if _Punch's_ references in prose and verse seem perfunctory and laboured, it may be pleaded in the words of the classic aphorism: "small cares are vocal, mighty woes are dumb." Better justice was rendered to the event in the cartoon of the "Irish Frankenstein" in which Parnell crouches horrified before the monster of his own creation. _Punch_ did not, however, despair of conciliation, and a fortnight later supported the Arrears of Rent Bill as "a gift badly wanted," though his support was tempered by the observation that "Ireland is to have a clean slate, and, as usual, at the expense chiefly of the British taxpayer. That patient Jackass is to be saddled with another burden."

In the latter half of 1882 Ireland gave place to Egypt as a storm-centre. Arabi's revolt, which involved us in another of our small wars, was speedily suppressed, after Alexandria had been bombarded by Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour, and the rebel forces on land had been routed at Tel-el-Kebir by Sir Garnet Wolseley, "our only General," as he was then called. _Punch_ celebrated his success and his peerage in an "Idyll of the Queen," beginning, "Garnet the brave, Garnet the fortunate." But he also recognized the strained relations with France which the campaign brought about, and uncompromisingly maintained our position in his cartoon, "The Lion's Just Share." Here the claims of all the other Powers are made ridiculous in comparison with those of Britain, France figuring as a poodle, Turkey as a fox, Spain as a mule, and Italy as a toy greyhound. It is not a conciliatory picture; _Punch_ was on safer ground in emphasizing the intrigues of Abdul Hamid and the unpatriotic sympathies of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt.

[Sidenote: _Parnell and his Monster_]

"The baneful and blood-stained Monster ... yet was it not my Master to the very extent that it was my Creature?... Had I not breathed into it my spirit?" ... (_Extract from the Works of C. S. P-rn-ll, M.P._)]

Ireland resumed the first place as a preoccupying factor in British politics in 1883, when the capture of Monaghan by the Parnellites inspired _Punch_ to depict him as cutting a bit off a coat labelled Ulster. Another cartoon, "Crowning the O'Caliban," prompted by the Irish leader's talk of the "moderation" of the Land League, shows him crowning a hideous figure, sitting on a barrel labelled Anarchy, Rebellion and Murder, and receiving from him a bag containing £40,000--in reference to the "Parnell Tribute" presented to the Irish leader in that year.

Lord Randolph is easily the chief butt of the year. He is the "bumptious boy," the 'Arry of the hunting field, disregarding the old whip, Stafford Northcote. Yet amid all this derision there is an uneasy consciousness that this aggressive and ill-mannered young man may yet "arrive." In another cartoon Lord Randolph is drawn as a small boy looking at Lord Beaconsfield's statue and saying, "Ah! They'll have to give _me_ a statue--some day." The twenty-fifth anniversary of John Bright's election for Birmingham, which fell in June, 1883, is treated in a very different spirit. _Punch_ disagreed with Bright over the Egyptian war, but strikes no jarring note in the verses on his political silver wedding:--

Mellower voice has never rung
Round the lists of Party fray:
Sharper scorn has seldom stung.
Yet your Silver Wedding Day
Wakes good wishes near and far
E'en from fighters who have gone
Dead against you in the war.
Here's a health to you, Friend John.

That "annual blister, Marriage with deceased Wife's sister," as Gilbert called it, found _Punch_ still faithful to the cause of relief, and exceedingly and impartially wroth against clerical obstructors, Anglican or Roman Catholic, to the extent of depicting Cardinal Manning and Archbishop Benson in the guise of old women. Where the Liquor Laws were concerned, however, _Punch_ was frankly reactionary. In a "Look into Limbo" in July, 1883, he forecasts a general revolt against crotcheteers and faddists, his pet aversion being Local Option, which he defines as "a scheme for giving the six, who love spouting, supreme control over the liberty of the sixty or six hundred who dislike noise, and so hold their tongues until, in self-defence, they are compelled to use them."

[Sidenote: _German Militarism_]

Foreign politics do not obtrude themselves much on _Punch's_ vision during the Gladstonian administration. But he was alive to the menace of militarism contained in a characteristic speech by Marshal von Manteuffel, the sentiment of which curiously resembles some of the utterances of the ex-Crown Prince William:--

THE PSALM OF DEATH

"Gentlemen, I am a soldier, and war is the soldier's element; and well
I should like again to experience the elevated feeling of commanding
in a pitched battle, knowing that the balls of the enemy are every
instant summoning men before the judgment seat of God."--Marshal von
Manteuffel to the Provincial Committee of Alsace-Lorraine.

What the heart of the young Teuton said to the old Marshal is summed up as follows:--

Tell me not in mournful numbers
Death is shocking. Not at all!
Death clears off the scum that cumbers
This o'er-populated ball.

Death is stirring, Death is splendid,
(Death of other men, not mine)
And its spreading is attended
By a feeling great--divine.

* * * * *

Let us then be up and fighting
(_A la_ Marshal von Manteuffel)
Set the Mob to mutual smiting,
While _we_ sing Death's O be joyful!

Gambetta's brief and stormy career had closed at the beginning of the year, and _Punch_ acknowledged the debt which France owed to his passionate patriotism and "wild strength" in a cartoon showing the Republic leaning sadly against his memorial bust while Bismarck, with arms folded, stands in the background.