Great Britain and Her Queen - by Anne E. Keeling
in the long and very successful tour which the Prince of Wales, some time after his restoration to health,
made of the vast Indian dominions of the crown. Extensive travels and wide acquaintance with the great
world to which Britain is bound by a thousand ties have entered largely into the royal scheme of
education for the future King. No princes of England in former days have seen so much of other lands as
the sons of Queen Victoria; and this particular journey is understood to have had an excellent political
effect.
Mr. Gladstone's five years' lease of power, which had been signalised by so many important changes,
came to an end in 1874, just before the time when Sir Garnet Wolseley, sent to bring the savage King of
Ashantee to reason, returned successful to England, having snatched a complete victory "out of the very
jaws of approaching sun and fever" on the pestilent West Coast of Africa in the early days of 1874. The
last Ministry of Mr. Disraeli, who now assumed office, was marked by several noticeable events: the
proclamation of the Queen as "Empress of India," in formal definite recognition of the new relation
between little England and the gigantic, many-peopled realm which through strange adventure has come
directly under our Sovereign's sway; the Russo-Turkish war, following on the evil doings in Turkey
known as the "Bulgarian atrocities," and terminating in a peace signed at Berlin, with which the English
Premier, now known as Lord Beaconsfield, had very much to do; and the acquisition by England of the
176,000 shares in the Suez Canal originally held by the Khedive of Egypt - a transaction to which
France, also largely interested in the Canal, was a consenting party. To this period belong the distressful
Afghan and Zulu wars, the latter unhappily memorable by the tragic fate that befell the young son of
Louis Napoleon, a volunteer serving with the English army. Deep sympathy was felt for his imperial
mother, widowed since 1873, and now bereaved of her only child; and by none was her sorrow more
keenly realised than by the Queen, who herself had to mourn the loss of the beloved Princess Alice, the
first of her children to follow her father into the silent land. The death of the Prince Louis Napoleon at
the hands of savage Zulus was severely felt by the still strong Bonapartism of France; but Englishmen,
remembering the early melancholy death of the heir of the first Napoleon, were struck by the fatal
coincidence, while they could honestly deplore the premature extinction of so much youth, gallantry, and
hope-fulness, cast away in our own ill-starred quarrel.
An agitation distinctly humanitarian and domestic had been going on during the early years of this
Ministry, which resulted in the passing of the Merchant Shipping Bill, intended to remedy the many
wrongs to which our merchant seamen were subject, a measure almost entirely procured by the fervent
human sympathy and resoluteness of one member of Parliament, Samuel Plimsoll; and other measures
belonging to this period, and designed to benefit the toilers of the land principally, were initiated by the
energy of the Home Secretary, Mr. Cross. But neither the imposing foreign action of Lord Beaconsfield's
Government, nor the domestic improvements wrought during its period of power, could maintain it in
public favour. There was great and growing distress in the country; depression of trade, severe winters,
sunless summers, all produced suffering, and suffering discontent. An appeal to the country, made in the
spring of 1880, shifted the Parliamentary majority from the Conservative to the Liberal side. Lord
Beaconsfield resigned, and Mr. Gladstone returned to power.
The history of the Gladstone Ministry does not come well within the scope of this work. Certain very
memorable events must be touched upon; there are dark chapters of our national story, stains and blots on
our great name, which force themselves upon us. But to follow the Government through its years of
struggle with the ever-growing bulk of Irish difficulty, and to track it through its various enactments
designed still further to improve the condition of the English people, would require a small volume to
itself. England still remembers the thrill, half fury, half anguish, which ran through her at the tidings that
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