372 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



time just before his death. His "History of 

 the Nineteenth Century," a fit continuation of 

 Schlosser's "History of the Eighteenth Cen- 

 tury," is also a work highly prized. He had 

 also written an exhaustive work on Shake- 

 speare and his time; a "History of German 

 Poetry," entirely distinct from the work pre- 

 viously mentioned, and having a diiferent mo- 

 tive; numerous historic studies and essays, a 

 " Treatise on the Principles of History;" an 

 epic and didactic poem entitled " Gudr.un ; " a 

 humorous and philosophical essay on the "His- 

 tory of the Art of Drinking ; " the " Insurrec- 

 tion and Regeneration of Greece ; " and many 

 other works. 



GREAT BRITAIN ; or, THE UNITED KING- 

 DOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. Area, 

 by the surveys of 1871, 121,115 square miles, 

 or 77,513,585 statute acres. Population, by 

 the census of April 3, 1871, 31,817,108, of 

 which 67.5 per cent, reside in England, 10.6 

 per cent, in Scotland, 17 per cent, in Ireland, 

 3.8 per cent, in Wales, and the remainder on 

 the smaller islands, or in the army, navy, and 

 mercantile marine. This small territory and 

 moderate population form but small fractions 

 of the area and population of the British Em- 

 pire, which includes vast tracts of land and 

 many millions of inhabitants in all quarters of 

 the globe. That empire comprises an area of 

 4,737,850 square miles, and a total population 

 of all nationalities of 250,750,397 inhabitants, 

 more than four-fifths of whom occupy British 

 India and the other British possessions in the 

 East. Yet the not quite thirty-two millions 

 of people of Great Britain and Ireland furnish 

 one-half the revenue and five-sevenths of the 

 imports and exports of the empire, and on 

 them falls the burden of 82 per cent, of the 

 vast national debt. 



The government is a constitutional monar- 

 chy, which with its checks and balances so con- 

 trols the action of the monarch that the greater 

 share of the actual power resides in the cabinet, 

 which represents the views of the majority of 

 the House of Commons for the time being. Vic- 

 toria I. is Queen alike of the United Kingdom 

 and of the British Empire, and her eldest son, 

 Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, is heir- 

 apparent to the throne. The cabinet was 

 still that of Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 

 throughout the year 1871, but the following 

 changes were made in some of its members 

 during the year : Rt. Hon. George Joachim 

 Goschen, previously President of the Poor- 

 Law Board, succeeded Rt. Hon. Hugh Culling 

 Eardley Childers as First Lord of the Admi- 

 ralty; Rt. Hon. Chichester Fortescne, previ- 

 ously Chief Secretary for Ireland, succeeded 

 Rt. Hon. John Bright as President of the 

 Board of Trade; the Marquis of Hartington, 

 formerly Postmaster -General, succeeded Mr. 

 Fortescue as Chief Secretary for Ireland ; Rt. 

 Hon. William Monsell succeeded the Marquis 

 of Hartington as Postmaster -General; and 

 Rt. Hon. James Stansfeld succeeded Mr. 



Goschen as President of the Local Govern- 

 ment, or, as it was formerly called, the Poor- 

 Law Board. The Gladstone ministry, in sev- 

 eral important bills, greatly reduced their ma- 

 jority, and on one or two occasions narrowly 

 escaped defeat. The principal measures of 

 home interest were: 1. The Army Regulation 

 Bill, which prohibited the sale of their com- 

 missions by army officers, and provided for the 

 compensation of officers resigning their com- 

 missions by Government purchases. This 

 measure, which was part of a plan for the ref- 

 ormation and reorganization of the army, and 

 which was very necessary to give a higher 

 efficiency to the service, was violently opposed 

 and rejected by the House of Lords, but the 

 ministry adopted the unusual course of abol- 

 ishing the purchase of commissions by the use 

 of the royal prerogative, issuing the Queen's 

 warrant for the purpose. The House of Lords 

 were thus compelled to pass the bill, which 

 they did under protest, and accompanied it 

 with a vote of censure on the Government. 

 2. The Ballot Bill, providing that at elections 

 the voting shall be by secret ballot. This 

 passed the House of Commons, but was post- 

 poned to the session of 1872 by the Lords. 3, 

 Amendments to the Education Acts, providing 

 for the multiplication of the national schools 

 in Scotland, and for greater efficiency in pri- 

 mary instruction. 4. For protection against 

 the dangers from the use of petroleum oils. 

 The Irish Disestablishment Act went into full 

 operation January 1, 1871, but bills looking to 

 the eventual disestablishment of the English 

 Church, though brought forward and receiving 

 considerable support, were strongly opposed 

 by the ministry, and thrown out. 



As stated in the volume of the ANNUAL CY- 

 CLOPEDIA for 1870, negotiations were entered 

 into between the British Government and the 

 Government of the United States, very early 

 in 1871, looking to the appointment of a Joint 

 High Commission, to sit in Washington, to 

 consider primarily the question of the Cana- 

 dian fisheries, then assuming a dangerous 

 prominence. At the instance of President 

 Grant, the powers of this Joint High Commis- 

 sion were extended so as to embrace not only 

 the Alabama claims, but all other questions nt 

 issue between the two Governments. The 

 correspondence leading to this result is given 

 in full under the head of DIPLOMATIC CORRE- 

 SPONDENCE. The commissioners appointed on 

 the part of Great Britain were Earl de Grey 

 and Ripon, Sir Stafford Northcote, Sir Edward 

 Thornton (British minister to the United 

 States), Sir John Macdonald, and Prof. Monta- 

 gue Bernard. Their secretary was Lord Ten- 

 terden. The American commissioners were 

 Hon. Samuel Nelson (one of the Justices of the 

 Supreme Court of the United States), Hon. 

 Hamilton Fish (Secretary of State), Hon. 

 George H. Williams (now Attorney-General 

 of the United States), Hon. Robert C. Schenck 

 (now minister to Great Britain), and Hon. E. R. 



