286 



GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



as Postmaster-General in order to serve with the 

 troops in South Africa. He was succeeded by 

 Lord Londonderry. Sir Richard Webster became 

 Master of the Rolls, and was succeeded as Attor- 

 ney-General by Sir Robert Finlay. Sir Edward 

 ( arson became Solicitor-General. Parliament was 

 prorogued on Aug. 8. The lament over the in- 

 conclusive campaign in Africa was repeated in 

 the speech from the throne, although brilliant 

 skill and the heroism and high military qualities 

 of the troops had succeeded in driving the invaders 

 beyond the frontiers. The Orange Free State had 

 been annexed by proclamation in the belief that 

 the continued political independence of the two 

 republics would be a constant danger to the peace 

 of South Africa, and that it would be the first 

 step toward the union of races under institutions 

 which, while establishing from the outset good 

 ami just government for all, may be in time de- 

 veloped so as to secure equal rights and privileges 

 in the South African dominions. The disturbances 

 in China and Ashanti were mentioned, and the 

 famine and plague still raging in India, 



The General Election. The parliamentary 

 elections were held in the week beginning Oct. 14. 

 In the electoral campaign Sir Henry Campbell- 

 Bannerman, the accepted leader of the Liberals, 

 denounced the policy advocated by Sir Alfred 

 Milner in South Africa of governing the Orange 

 River and Transvaal colonies, as the Boer republics 

 were termed when their annexation was pro- 

 claimed, as Crown colonies. The Conservatives 

 obtained 332 seats, the same number as in the 

 last Parliament, and the Liberal Unionists in- 

 creased theirs from 67 to 69, making 401 minis- 

 terialists, compared with 399 in the former Parlia- 

 ment, and 269 in the Opposition, compared with 

 271. Of the Liberals with imperialistic tendencies, 

 however, of whom the outgoing Parliament con- 

 tained 63, there were 81 in the new house, while the 

 Radicals and Labor members fell off from 126 to 

 106, the Irish Nationalists retaining their 82 seats. 

 The Cabinet was reconstituted on Nov. 12 as fol- 

 lows: Prime Minster, Lord Salisbury; Lord Chan- 

 cellor, Lord Halsbury ; Lord President of the Coun- 

 cil, the Duke of Devonshire; Lord Privy Seal, 

 Lord Cross; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir 

 Michael Hicks-Beach; Home Secretary, Mr. 

 Ritchie; Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne; 

 Colonial Secretary, Mr. Chamberlain; Secretary 

 for War, W. St. John Brodrick, previously Parlia- 

 mentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Secretary 

 for India, Lord George Hamilton; Secretary for 

 Scotland, Lord Balfour of Burleigh; First Lord of 

 the Admiralty as successor of Mr. Goschen, Lord 

 Sel bourne; First Lord of the Treasury, Mr. Bal- 

 four; Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Cadogan; 

 Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Ashbourne; 

 President of the Board of Trade, Gerald Balfour, 

 previously Chief Secretary for Ireland; Presi- 

 dent of the Local Government Board, Walter 

 Long, previously President of the Board of Agri- 

 culture ; Secretary of Works and Public Buildings, 

 Mr. Akers-Douglas; Chief Secretary for Ireland, 

 George Wyndham, previously Parliamentary Sec- 

 retary for War; Postmaster-General, Lord Lon- 

 donderry; Vice President of the Council, Sir John 

 Gorst; Attorney-General, Sir Robert Finlay; So- 

 licitor-General, Sir Edward Carson. 



Edward VII. The Prince of Wales took the 

 oath as King in St. James's palace, Jan. 23, under 

 the style chosen by his mother, and on the 24th 

 was proclaimed throughout the kingdom as " Ed- 

 ward VII, by the Grace of God, of the United 

 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of 

 tin- Faith. Emperor of India." Parliament was not 

 dissolved on the decease of the sovereign, the law 



having been changed a few years before. The first 

 proclamation of the King retained in office all 

 persons in the employment of the Crown. 



Albert Edward (now Edward VII) was born 

 Nov. 9, 1841. He was taught in his childhood 

 by Lady Lyttleton, a sister of Mrs. Gladstone, and 

 after he was six years old by the Rev. Henry Mil- 

 dred Birch for four years, and then Frederick \V. 

 Gibbs became his tutor. He legally attained his 

 majority at the age of eighteen, and traveled 

 through Continental Europe incognito as Baron 

 Renfrew, with Mr. Tarver, who thenceforth di- 

 rected his studies. He entered upon a course of 

 study at Edinburgh so severe that the newspapers 

 made complaint that the heir apparent was being 

 overeducated. Later at Christ College, Oxford, he 

 joined freely in the sports and social life of the 

 undergraduates, and at Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, he led a life of ease and pleasure. In 1860 

 he visited Canada, accompanied by the Duke of 

 Newcastle, in recognition of the services of the 

 Canadian regiment in the Crimean War. Before 

 returning to England he made a journey through 

 the United States as Baron Renfrew. He fell in 

 love with Princess Alexandra of Schleswig-Hol- 

 stein, daughter of the heir designate of the Danish 

 throne, when he first met her in the autumn of 

 1861, and on March 10, 1863, they were married. 

 \Vith his wife he made many journeys in Europe. 

 In 1875 he visited India. The expense of this offi- 

 cial tour was a subject of complaint, but the popu- 

 lar mood changed when its political effect in 

 India was appreciated, and he was welcomed 

 home with ceremonies eclipsing those of the 

 thanksgiving over his recovery from typhoid 

 fever four years before. He made himself very 

 popular by presiding at public feasts and cere- 

 monies and by his modest and tactful addresses 

 on such occasions. When he consented to officiate 

 at a festival of the licensed victualers in 1876, the 

 temperance societies raised a protest ; and Radicals 

 complained constantly about the sums allowed him 

 by Parliament and about his extravagance and 

 readiness to make debts. They thought the debts 

 ought to be paid by his mother, who was accused 

 of niggardliness. The seclusion of the Queen and 

 her abstention from the public duties of royalty 

 made it necessary for the prince to take her place 

 whenever law and etiquette would allow. In social 

 life he surrounded himself with a jovial and pleas- 

 ure-loving set, some of them such as his mother 

 would scarcely admit to court. Following his 

 father's example, he took a keen interest in pro- 

 moting exhibitions, notably the Colonial and In- 

 dian Exhibition of 1886. His first speech in the 

 House of Lords was one in 1884 supporting a 

 measure to secure the better housing of the poor, 

 and the interest that he showed led to his being 

 appointed a commissioner to study the question. 

 The British public was once scandalized when the 

 Prince of Wales was summoned as a witness in 

 a divorce suit, and years later when through his 

 testimony an officer was cashiered for cheating 

 at cards. As a sportsman, however, a good shot. 

 a daring fox hunter, an owner of race horses since 

 1877, who won the Derby with Persimmon in ISJMi 

 and with Diamond Jubilee in 1900, a yachtsman, 

 commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron since 

 1882, and winner of the Queen's cup with the 

 cutter Britannia, and as a patron of the stiiire. tin- 

 Prince of Wales pleased the great majority of the 

 English people, and also by his popular tastes and 

 democratic ways, such as riding in cabs and min- 

 gling with the common run of pleasure awl-. 

 The practical interest that he took in agriculture, 

 evinced in the development and management of his 

 model estate at Sandringham, where he bred pri/.o 



