374 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



the Established Church ; and for the first time 

 in the last two hundred years they met in a 

 monster conference at Birmingham, in July, 

 at which nearly two thousand delegates assem- 

 bled, and rosolved to unite in political action 

 for the enforcement of their rights. The pau- 

 per question, always a troublesome one, was 

 again making itself prominent, and, with all the 

 wealth of Great Britain, the uncomfortable fact 

 was making itself felt throughout the whole 

 mass of the working-classes, the real producers 

 of British wealth, that one-fifth of the entire 

 population were either partially or wholly de- 

 pendent upon charity for a subsistence. 



It was at this inopportune time, and while 

 the working-classes were thus brooding over 

 real or fancied wrongs, that the Queen deemed 

 it necessary to ask for the Princess Louise an 

 allowance of $150,000 dowry, and an annual 

 stipend of $30,000 on her approaching mar- 

 riage with the Marquis of Lome, and very soon 

 after for an annual allowance for Prince Ar- 

 thur, who came of age during the year. Both 

 were voted, of course ; for the contract be- 

 tween the British nation and the house of 

 Hanover compelled a compliance with these 

 demands ; but the question, whether so expen- 

 sive a toy as royalty was, under the circum- 

 stances, worth what it cost, forced itself upon 

 the minds of thoughtful men among the masses 

 as it never had done before. They were not 

 averse to sustaining their Queen, if they must 

 have one, handsomely, even magnificently ; but 

 they could not understand why the sum of two 

 and a half million dollars annually should be 

 paid from their hard earnings, to defray the 

 mere family expenses of a queen who had be- 

 sides half a dozen royal residences and exten- 

 sive lauds and well-stocked farms, when she 

 was really only a figure-head, and they were 

 required to support also a vast host of retainers 

 to do her work. 



The bitter feeling engendered by these sev- 

 eral causes led to the attempt on the part of 

 the working-men to secure from one party or 

 the other a recognition of their rights, and a 

 guarantee of the legislation necessary to pro- 

 vide for them ; their demands, though in some 

 particulars probably impracticable, were not 

 extravagant in their character. Their propo- 

 sitions were formulated in about these terms : 

 1. Something like the United States home- 

 stead law, with modern improvements, to be 

 enacted, by which "the families of our work- 

 men" may be removed from the crowded quar- 

 ters ^of the towns and given detached home- 

 steads in the suburbs ; 2. The commune to be 

 established so far as to confer upon all coun- 

 ties, towns, and villages, a perfect organization 

 for self-government, with powers for the ac- 

 quisition and disposal of lands for the common 

 good; 3. Eight hours of honest and skilled 

 work shall constitute a day's labor; 4. Schools 

 for technical instruction shall be established at 

 the expense of the state, in the midst of the 

 homesteads of the proletariat; 5. Public mar- 



kets shall be erected in every town, at the 

 public expense, for the sale of goods of the 

 best quality, in small quantities, at wholesale 

 prices; 6. There shall be established, as parts 

 of the public service, places of public recrea- 

 tion, knowledge, and refinement ; 7. The rail- 

 ways shall be purchased and conducted at the 

 public expense, and for the common good, 

 as the Post-Office service is now conducted. 

 These propositions, or those substantially of 

 the same character, were submitted by the 

 working-men's representative, Mr. Scott Rus- 

 sell, an eminent engineer, to the Liberal lead- 

 ers, and at once rejected; negotiations were 

 then opened with the Conservative leaders, 

 who gave them some encouragement, possibly 

 in the hope of regaining power through them ; 

 but the negotiation was miserably mismanaged, 

 and fell through, perhaps in part from treach- 

 ery, just as it seemed on the eve of accom- 

 plishment. Meantime Sir Charles Dilkc, a 

 young baronet and member of Parliament, of 

 large wealth and fine culture, a man of consid- 

 erable logical power and of good address, the 

 son of the founder of the Athenaum and bosom 

 friend of the late Prince Albert, had come into 

 prominence as the advocate of the working- 

 men, and as a sympathizer with their views on 

 the uselessness and expensiveness of royalty. 

 Sir Charles addressed large bodies of working- 

 men in the principal manufacturing towns, and 

 was several times disturbed and put in peril of 

 his life by royalist mobs. His addresses, while 

 temperate in tone and respectful in relation to 

 the Queen and royal family personally, were 

 very severe in their exposure of the lavish ex- 

 penditure by the Government of moneys drawn 

 from the daily toil of the masses. The people 

 were delighted and the royalists enraged ; but, 

 just as matters were becoming very seriously 

 complicated, the Prince of Wales was seized 

 with typhoid fever, from malarial exposure, and 

 for several weeks was in great peril of his life. 

 His death at this juncture would have been a 

 great misfortune for the nation, and on this ac- 

 count, as well as from that feeling of loyalty 

 which ages have implanted in the English mind, 

 and which the high personal character of the 

 Queen has greatly enhanced, there were sincere 

 expressions of anxiety and loyal feeling through- 

 out the United Kingdom, which the royalists 

 were skilful enough to turn to good account. 

 But the end is not yet, and the opinion said to 

 have been expressed by the Prince of Wales, 

 that his mother would be the last monarch to 

 sit upon a British throne, may prove true. 



It may be well, before dismissing this sub- 

 ject, to give brief sketches of the present 

 leaders of the political parties which in turn 

 rule the United Kingdom. 



William Ewart Gladstone, the Premier of 

 the present British ministry, and the leader, 

 or, rather, the commander, of the moderate 

 Liberal party of Great Britain, sprung from 

 the middle class, and, though largely in sym- 

 pathy with the aristocracy, is not allied to 



