LXII. LIBERATION AND UNIFICATION OF ITALY
ITALY AT THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON.--The Italian people, as being the most dangerously infected with the ideas of the Revolution, were, by the reactionary Congress of Vienna, condemned to the most strict and ignominious slavery. The former commonwealths were forbidden to restore their ancient institutions, while the petty principalities were handed over in almost every case to the tyrants or the heirs of the tyrants who had ruled them before the Revolution. Austria appropriated Venetia and Lombardy, and from Northern Italy assumed to direct the affairs of the whole peninsula. Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Piacenza were given to princes of the House of Hapsburg. Naples was restored to its old Bourbon rulers. The Pope and Victor Emmanuel I., king of Sardinia, were the only native rulers.
"Italy was divided on the map, but she had made up her mind to be one." The Revolution had sown the seeds of Liberty, and time only was needed for their maturing. The Cisalpine, the Ligurian, the Parthenopæan, the Tiberine republics (see pp. 668, 670), short-lived though they were, had awakened in the people an aspiration for self-government; while Napoleon's kingdom of Italy (see p. 676, n.), though equally delusive, had nevertheless inspired thousands of Italian patriots with the sentiment of national unity. Thus the French Revolution, disappointing as seemed its issue, really imparted to Italy her first impulse in the direction of freedom and of national organization.
Arbitrary Rule of the Restored Princes.--The setting up of the overturned thrones meant, of course, the re-instating of the old tyrannies. The restored despots came back with an implacable hatred of everything French. They swept away all French institutions that were supposed to tend in the least to Liberalism. At Rome even vaccination and street-lamps, French innovations, were abolished. In Sardinia, nothing that bore the French stamp, nothing that had been set up by French hands, was allowed to remain. Even the French furniture in the royal palace at Turin was thrown out of the windows, and the French plants in the royal gardens were pulled up root and branch.
THE CARBONARI: UPRISING OF 1820-1821.--The natural results of the arbitrary rule and retrogressive policy of the restored princes was deep and widespread discontent. The French Revolution, as we have said, had sown broadcast in Italy the seeds of liberty, and their growth could not be checked by the repressions of tyranny. An old secret organization, the members of which were known as, the Carbonari (charcoal-burners), formed the nucleus about which gathered the elements of disaffection.
In 1820, incited by a revolution in Spain, the Carbonari raised an insurrection in Naples, and forced King Ferdinand, who was ruler of both Naples and Sicily, now united under the name of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, to grant his Neapolitan subjects what was known as the Spanish Constitution of 1812. But Prince Metternich (see p. 702), who had been watching the doings of the Liberal party in Naples, interfered to mar their plans. He reasoned that Lombardy and Venetia could be kept free from the contagion of Liberalism only by the stamping out of the infection wherever else in Italy it might show itself. Hence 60,000 Austrian troops were sent to crush the revolutionists. Ferdinand was re-instated in his former absolute authority, and everything was put back on the old footing.
Meanwhile a similar revolution was running its course in Piedmont. King Victor Emmanuel I., rather than yield to the demands of his people for a constitutional government, gave up his crown, and was succeeded by his brother Charles Felix, who, by threatening to call to his aid the Austrian army, compelled his subjects to cease their clamor about kings ruling, not by the grace of God, but by the will of the people.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1830-1831.--For just ten years all Italy lay in sullen vassalage to Austria. Then the revolutionary years of 1830-31 witnessed a repetition of the scenes of 1820-21. The revolution in France which placed Louis Philippe upon the French throne (see p. 688) sent a tremor of excitement and hope through all Italy. The centre of the revolution was the Papal States. But the presence of Austrian troops, who, "true to their old principle of hurrying with their extinguishers to any spot in Italy where a crater opened," had poured into Central Italy, resulted in the speedy quenching of the flames of the insurrection.
THE THREE PARTIES: PLANS FOR NATIONAL ORGANIZATION.--Twice now had Austrian armies crushed the aspirations of the Italians after national unity and freedom. Italian hatred of these foreign intermeddlers who were causing them to miss their destiny, grew ever more intense, and "death to the Germans" became the watch-cry that united all the peoples of the peninsula.
But while united in their deadly hatred of the Austrians, the Italians were divided in their views respecting the best plan for national organization. One party, known as "Young Italy," founded and inspired by the patriot Joseph Mazzini, wanted a republic; another party wanted a confederation of the various states, with the Pope as chief; while still a third wished to see Italy a constitutional monarchy, with the king of Sardinia at its head.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1848-1849.--After the suppression of the uprising of 1830, until the approach of the momentous year of 1848, Italy lay restless under the heel of her oppressor. The republican movements throughout the continent of Europe which characterized that year of revolutions, inspired the Italian patriots to make another attempt to achieve independence and nationality. Everywhere throughout the peninsula they rose against their despotic rulers, and forced them to grant constitutions and institute reforms. But through the intervention of the Austrians and the French [Footnote: This interference by the French in Italian affairs was instigated by their jealousy of Austria, and by the anxious desire of Louis Napoleon to win the good-will of the Catholic clergy in France.] the third Italian revolution was thwarted. By the autumn of the year 1849 the Liberals were everywhere crushed, their leaders executed, imprisoned, or driven into exile, and the dream of Italy's unity and freedom dispelled by the hard present fact of renewed tyranny and foreign domination.
Much, however, had been gained. The patriotic party had had revealed to itself its strength, and at the same time the necessity of united action, --of the adoption of a single policy. Henceforth the Republicans and Federalists were more inclined to give up as impracticable their plans of national organization, and with the Constitutionalists to look upon the kingdom of Sardinia as the only possible basis and nucleus of a free and united Italy.
VICTOR EMMANUEL II., COUNT CAVOUR, AND GARIBALDI.--Sardinia was a state which had gradually grown into power in the northwest corner of the peninsula. The throne was at this time held by Victor Emmanuel II. (1849- 1878). To him it was that the hopes of the Italian patriots now turned. Nor were these hopes to be disappointed. Victor Emmanuel was the destined liberator of Italy, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that his was the name in which the achievement was to be effected by the wise policy of his great minister Count Cavour, and the reckless daring of the hero Garibaldi.
Count Cavour was a man of large hopes and large plans. His single aim and purpose was the independence and unification of Italy. He was the genius of Italian liberty. Garibaldi, "the hero of the red shirt," was the knight-errant of Italian independence. Though yet barely past middle life, he had led a career singularly crowded with varied experiences and romantic adventures. Because of his violent republicanism, he had already been twice exiled from Italy.
THE AUSTRO-SARDINIAN WAR (1859-1860).--The hour for striking another blow for the freedom of Italy had now arrived. In 1859 Count Cavour, in the pursuance of his national policy for Italy, having first made a secret arrangement with the French emperor, gave Austria to understand that unless she granted Lombardy and Venetia free government and ceased to interfere in the affairs of the rest of Italy, Sardinia would declare war against her. Of course the Austrian government refused to accede to the demand, and almost immediately war followed. The French emperor, actuated probably less by gratitude for the aid of the Sardinian contingent in the Crimean struggle (see p.726) than by jealousy of Austria and the promise of Savoy and Nice in case of a successful issue of the war, supported the Sardinians with the armies of France. The two great victories of Magenta and Solferino seemed to promise to the allies a triumphant march to the Adriatic. But just now the threatening attitude of Prussia and other German states, in connection with other considerations, led Napoleon to enter upon negotiations of peace with the Austrian emperor at Villafranca.
The outcome was that Austria retained Venice, but gave up to Sardinia the larger part of Lombardy. The Sardinians were bitterly disappointed that they did not get Venetia, and loudly accused the French emperor of having betrayed their cause, since at the outset he had promised them that he would free Italy from the mountains to the sea. But Sardinia found compensation for Venice in the accession of Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna, the peoples of which states, having discarded their old rulers, besought Victor Emmanuel to permit them to unite themselves to his kingdom. Thus, as the result of the war, the king of Sardinia had added to his subjects a population of 9,000,000. One long step was taken in the way of Italian unity and freedom.
SICILY AND NAPLES ADDED TO VICTOR EMMANUEL'S KINGDOM (1860).--The romantic and adventurous daring of the hero Garibaldi now added Sicily and Naples to the possessions of Victor Emmanuel, and changed the kingdom of Sardinia into the kingdom of Italy.
The king of Naples and Sicily, Francis II., was a typical despot. In 1860 his subjects rose in revolt. Victor Emmanuel and his minister Cavour were in sympathy with the movement, yet dared not send the insurgents aid through fear of arousing the jealousy of Austria and of France. But Garibaldi, untrammelled by any such considerations, having gathered a band of a thousand or more volunteers, set sail from Genoa for Sicily, where upon landing he assumed the title of Dictator of Sicily for Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, and quickly drove the troops of King Francis out of the island. Then crossing to the mainland, he marched triumphantly to Naples, whose inhabitants hailed him tumultuously as their Deliverer.
The Neapolitans and Sicilians now voted almost unanimously for annexation to the Sardinian kingdom. The hero Garibaldi, having first met and hailed his Sovereign "King of Italy," surrendered his dictatorship, and retired to the island of Capri, in the bay of Naples. He had earned the lasting gratitude of his country.
Thus was another great step taken in the unification of Italy. Nine millions more of Italians had become the subjects of Victor Emmanuel. There was now wanting to the complete union of Italy only Venetia and the Papal territories.
VENETIA ADDED TO THE KINGDOM (1866).--The Seven Weeks' War which broke out between Prussia and Austria in 1866 afforded the Italian patriots the opportunity for which they were watching to make Venetia a part of the kingdom of Italy. Victor Emmanuel formed an alliance with the king of Prussia, one of the conditions of which was that no peace should be made with Austria until she had surrendered Venetia to Italy. The speedy issue of the war added the coveted territory to the dominions of Victor Emmanuel. Rome alone was now lacking to the complete unification of Italy.
ROME BECOMES THE CAPITAL (1870).--After the liberation of Naples and Sicily the city of Turin, the old capital of the Sardinian kingdom, was made the capital of the new kingdom of Italy. In 1865 the seat of government was transferred to Florence. But the Italians looked forward to the time when Rome, the ancient mistress of the peninsula and of the world, should be their capital. The power of the Pope, however, was upheld by the French, and this made it impossible for the Italians to have their will in this matter without a conflict with France.
But events soon gave the coveted capital to the Italian government. In 1870 came the sharp, quick war between France and Prussia, and the French troops at Rome were hastily summoned home. Upon the overthrow of the French Monarchy and the establishment of the Republic, Victor Emmanuel was informed that France would no longer sustain the Papal power. The Italian government at once gave notice to the Pope that Rome would henceforth be considered a portion of the kingdom of Italy, and forthwith an Italian army entered the city, which by a vote of 133,681 to 1,507 joined itself to the Italian nation. The family was now complete. Rome was the capital of a free and united Italy. July 2, 1871, Victor Emmanuel [Footnote: In the early part of the year 1878 Victor Emmanuel died, and his son came to the throne, with the title of Humbert 1., the second king of Italy.] himself entered the city and took up his residence there.
END OF THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE.--Through the extension of the authority of the Italian government over the Papal states, the Pope was despoiled of the last vestige of that temporal power wherewith Pepin and Charlemagne had invested the Bishops of Rome more than a thousand years before (see p. 404). The Papal troops were disbanded, but the Pope, Pius IX., still retained all his spiritual authority, the Vatican with its 11,000 chambers being reserved to him as a place of residence. Just a few months before the loss of his temporal sovereignty a great Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church had proclaimed the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, which declares decrees of the Pope "on questions of faith and morals" to be infallible.
CONCLUSION.--Although there has been much antagonism between the Vatican and the Quirinal, that is, between the Pope and the Italian government, still reform and progress have marked Italian affairs since the events of 1870. A public system of education has been established; brigandage has been suppressed; agriculture has been encouraged; while the naval and military resources of the peninsula have been developed to such an extent that Italy, so recently the prey of foreign sovereigns, of petty native tyrants, and of adventurers, is now justly regarded as one of the great powers of Europe.
LXIII. ENGLAND SINCE THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA
THE THREE CHIEF MATTERS.--English history since the close of the Napoleonic wars embraces a multitude of events. A short chapter covering the entire period will possess no instructive value unless it reduces the heterogeneous mass of facts to some sort of unity by placing events in relation with their causes, and thus showing how they are connected with a few broad national movements or tendencies.
Studying the period in this way, we shall find that very many of its leading events may be summed up under the three following heads: 1. Progress towards democracy; 2. Expansion of the principle of religious equality; 3. Growth of the British Empire in the East.
1. PROGRESS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY.
EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION UPON LIBERALISM IN ENGLAND.--The French Revolution at first gave a fresh impulse to liberal tendencies in England. The English Liberals watched the course of the French Republicans with the deepest interest and sympathy. It will be recalled how the statesman Fox rejoiced at the fall of the Bastile, and what auguries of hope he saw in the event (see p. 652). The young writers Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey were all in sympathy with democratic sentiments, and inspired with a generous enthusiasm for political liberty and equality. But the wild excesses of the French Levellers terrified the English Liberals. There was a sudden revulsion of feeling. Liberal sentiments were denounced as dangerous and revolutionary.
But in a few years after the downfall of Napoleon, the terrors of the French Revolution were forgotten. Liberal sentiments began to spread among the masses. The people very justly complained that, while the English government claimed to be a government of the people, they had no part in it. [Footnote: The English Revolution of 1688 transferred authority from the king to the Parliament. The elective branch of that body, however, rested upon a very narrow electoral basis. Out of 5,000,000 Englishmen who should have had a voice in the government, not more than 160,000 were voters, and these were chiefly of the rich upper classes. At the opening of the nineteenth century the number of electors in Scotland did not exceed 3000.]
Now, it is instructive to note the different ways in which Liberalism was dealt with by the English government and by the rulers on the continent. In the continental countries the rising spirit of democracy was met by cruel and despotic repressions. The people were denied by their rulers all participation in the affairs of government. We have seen the result. Liberalism triumphed indeed at last, but triumphed only through Revolution.
In England, the government did not resist the popular demands to the point of Revolution. It made timely concessions to the growing spirit of democracy. Hence here, instead of a series of revolutions, we have a series of reform measures, which, gradually popularizing the House of Commons, at last renders the English nation not alone in name, but in reality, a self-governing people.
THE REFORM BILL OF 1832.--The first Parliamentary step in reform was taken in 1832. To understand this important act, a retrospective glance becomes necessary.
When, in 1265, the Commons were first admitted to Parliament (see p. 480), members were called only from those cities and boroughs whose wealth and population fairly entitled them to representation. In the course of time some of these places dwindled in population, and new towns sprang up: yet the decayed boroughs retained their ancient privilege of sending members to Parliament, while the new towns were left entirely without representation. Thus Old Sarum, an ancient town now utterly decayed and without a single inhabitant, was represented in the Commons by two members. Furthermore, the sovereign, for the purpose of gaining influence in the Commons, had, from time to time, given unimportant places the right of returning members to the Lower House. In 1793 less than 200 electors, or voters, sent to the Commons 197 members. Of course, elections in these small or "pocket boroughs," as they were called, were almost always determined by the corrupt influence of the crown or of the resident lords. The Lower House of Parliament was thus filled with the nominees of the king, or of some great lord, or with persons who had bought the office, often with little effort at concealment. At the same time, such large, recently grown manufacturing towns as Birmingham and Manchester had no representation at all in the Commons.
Agitation was begun for the reform of this corrupt and farcical system of representation. The contest between the Whigs and the Tories, or Liberals and Conservatives, was long and bitter. The Conservatives of course opposed all reform. Bill after bill was introduced into Parliament to correct the evil, but most of these, after having passed the Commons, were lost in the House of Lords. At last the public feeling became so strong and violent that the lords were forced to yield, and the Reform Bill of 1832 became a law. [Footnote: The popularizing of the House of Commons led to a series of acts of a popular character. Among them was an act (in 1833) for the abolition of slavery throughout the British colonies. 780,993 slaves in the British West Indies were freed at a cost to the English nation of L20,000,000.]
By this act the electoral system of the kingdom was radically changed. Fifty-six of the "rotten boroughs" were disfranchised, and the 143 seats in the Lower House which they had filled were given to different counties and large towns. The bill also greatly increased the number of electors by extending the right of voting to all persons owning or leasing property of a certain value. We can scarcely exaggerate the importance of this Reform Bill.
CHARTISM: THE REVOLUTIONARY YEAR OF 1848.--But while the Reform bill of 1832 was almost revolutionary in the principle it established, it went only a little way in the application of the principle. It admitted to the franchise the middle classes only. The great laboring class were given no part in the government. They now began an agitation,--characterized by much bitterness,--known as Chartism, from a document called the "People's Charter," which embodied the reforms they desired. These were "universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, the division of the country into equal electoral districts, the abolition of the property qualifications of members, and payment for their services."
The agitation for these changes in the constitution went on with more or less violence until 1848. That year the Chartists, encouraged by the revolutions then shaking almost every throne on the European continent, indulged in riotous demonstrations which frightened the law-abiding citizens, and brought discredit upon themselves. Their organization now fell to pieces. The reforms, however, which they had labored to secure, were, in the main, desirable and just, and the most important of them have since been adopted and made a part of the English Constitution.
THE REFORM BILL OF 1867.--The Reform Bill of 1867 was simply another step taken by the English government in the direction of the Reform Bill of 1832. Like that measure, it was passed only after long and violent agitation and discussion both without and within the walls of Parliament. Its main effect was the extension of the right of voting,--the enfranchisement of the great "fourth estate, or the masses." By it also a few small boroughs in England--for the bill did not concern either Ireland or Scotland, separate bills of somewhat similar provisions being framed for them--were disfranchised, and several new ones created.
THE REFORM BILL OF 1884.--One of the conservative leaders, the Earl of Derby, in the discussions upon the Reform Bill of 1867, said, "No doubt we are making a great experiment, and taking a leap in the dark." Just seventeen years after the passage of that bill, the English people were ready to take another leap. But they were not now leaping in the dark. The wisdom and safety of admitting the lower classes to a participation in the government had been demonstrated.
In 1884 Mr. Gladstone, then prime minister, introduced and pushed to a successful vote a new reform bill, more radical and sweeping in its provisions than any preceding one. It increased the number of voters from about 3,000,000 to about 5,000,000. The qualification of voters in the counties was made the same as that required of voters in the boroughs. Hence its effect was to enfranchise the great agricultural classes.
ONLY THE FORMS OF MONARCHY REMAIN.--The English government is now in reality as democratic as our own. Only the forms of monarchy remain. It does not seem probable, that these can long withstand the encroachments of democracy. Hereditary privilege, as represented by the House of Lords and the Crown, is likely soon to be abolished.
HOME RULE FOR IRELAND.--In connection with the above outline of the democratic movement in England, a word must be said about the so-called Home Rule movement in Ireland.
The legislative independence secured by Ireland in 1782 (see p. 632), was maintained only a short time. In 1798, England being then engaged in war with the revolutionists of France, the Irish rose in revolt, with the purpose of setting up an Irish republic. The uprising was quelled, and then as a measure of security the Irish Parliament was abolished (1801) and Ireland given representation in the English Parliament, just as had been done in the case of Scotland at the time of the legislative union of England and Scotland (see p. 629).
The Irish patriots bitterly resented this extinction of the legislative independence of Ireland, and denounced as traitors those members of the last Irish Parliament who, corrupted by the English minister, William Pitt (the younger), had voted away Irish liberties. Consequently from the day of the Union to the present, there has been more or less agitation for its repeal and the re-establishment of the old Irish Parliament. In 1841, under the inspiration of the eloquent Daniel O'Connell, Ireland was brought to the verge of insurrection, but the movement was suppressed. In 1886 Mr. Gladstone, then prime minister, introduced a bill in Parliament, granting a separate legislation to Ireland. This led to bitter debate both within and without the walls of Parliament, and at the present time (1889), the question of Home Rule for Ireland is the leading issue in English politics.[Footnote: Closely connected with this political question of Home Rule for Ireland, is the agrarian, or land trouble. At bottom, this is a matter that involves the right of private property in land, and touches questions that belong to the Industrial Age (see p. 729) rather than to that of the Political Revolution.]
2. EXPANSION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF RELIGIOUS EQUALITY.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY.--Alongside the political movement traced in the preceding section has run a similar one in the religious realm. This is a growing recognition by the English people of the true principle of religious toleration.
At the opening of the nineteenth century there was in England religious freedom, but no religious equality. That is to say, one might be a Catholic or a dissenter, if he chose to be, without fear of persecution. Dissent from the Established Church was not unlawful. But one's being a dissenter disqualified him from holding certain public offices. Where there exists such discrimination against any religious sect, or where any one sect is favored or sustained by the government, there of course is no religious equality, although there may be religious freedom. Progress in this direction, then, has consisted in the growth of a really tolerant spirit, which has led to the removal from Catholics, Protestant dissenters, and Jews all civil disabilities, and the placing of all sects on an absolute equality before the law. This is but a completion of the work of the Protestant Reformation.
METHODISM AND ITS EFFECTS UPON TOLERATION.--One thing that helped to bring prominently forward the question of emancipating non-conformists from the civil disabilities under which they were placed, was the great religious movement known as Methodism, which during the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century revolutionized the religious life of England. [Footnote: The leaders of the movement were George Whitefield (1714-1770) and John Wesley (1703-1791). Whitefield became the leader of the Calvinistic Methodists, and Wesley the founder of the sect known as Wesleyans. The Methodists at first had no thought of establishing a church distinct from the Anglican, but simply aimed to form within the Established Church a society of earnest, devout laymen, somewhat like that of the Young Men's Christian Association in our present churches. Petty persecution, however, eventually constrained them to go out from the established organization and form a Church of their own. This of course constituted them dissenters.] By vastly increasing the body of Protestant dissenters, Methodism gave new strength to the agitation for the repeal of the laws which bore so heavily upon them.
DISABILITIES REMOVED FROM PROTESTANT DISSENTERS (1828).--One of the earliest and most important of the acts of Parliament in this century in recognition of the principle of religious equality, was the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, in so far as they bore upon Protestant dissenters. These were acts passed in the reign of Charles II., which required every officer of a corporation, and all persons holding civil and military positions, to take certain oaths, and partake of the communion according to the rites of the Anglican Church. It is true that these laws were not now strictly enforced; nevertheless, the laws were invidious and vexatious, and the Protestant dissenters demanded their repeal. The result of the debate in Parliament was the repeal of such parts of the ancient acts as it was necessary to rescind in order to relieve Protestant dissenters,--that is, the provision requiring persons holding office to be communicants of the Anglican Church.
DISABILITIES REMOVED FROM THE CATHOLICS (1829).--The bill of 1828 gave no relief to Catholics. They were still excluded from Parliament and various civil offices by the declarations of belief and the oaths required of office-holders,--declarations and oaths which no good Catholic could conscientiously make. They now demanded that the same concessions be made them that had been granted Protestant dissenters. The ablest champion of Catholic emancipation was the eloquent Daniel O'Connell, an Irish patriot.
A threatened revolt on the part of the Irish Catholics hurried the progress of what was known as the Catholic Emancipation Act through Parliament. This law opened all the offices of the kingdom, below the crown,--save that of Lord Chancellor of England and Ireland, the Viceroyalty of Ireland, and a few others,--to the Catholic subjects of the realm.
DISABILITIES REMOVED FROM THE JEWS.--The Jews were still laboring under all the disabilities which had now been removed from Protestant dissenters and Catholics. In 1845 an act was passed by Parliament which so changed the oath required for admission to corporate offices--the oath contained the words "on the faith of a Christian"--as to open them to Jews.
In 1858, after a long and unseemly struggle, the House of Commons was opened to the long-proscribed race; and about a quarter of a century later, the House of Lords admitted to a seat Baron Rothschild, the first peer of Hebrew faith that had ever sat in that body.
DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH (1869).--Forty years after the Catholic Emancipation Act, the English government took another great step in the direction of religious equality, by the disestablishment of the State Church in Ireland.
The Irish have always and steadily refused to accept the religion which their English conquerors have somehow felt constrained to force upon them. The vast majority of the people are to-day and ever have been Catholics; yet up to the time where we have now arrived these Irish Catholics had been compelled to pay tithes and fees for the maintenance among them of the Anglican Church worship. Meanwhile their own churches, in which the great masses were instructed and cared for spiritually, had to be kept up by voluntary contributions. The proposition to do away with this grievance by the disestablishment of the State Church in Ireland was bitterly opposed by the Conservatives; but at length, after a memorable debate, the Liberals, under the lead of Bright and Gladstone, the latter then prime minister, carried the measure. This was in 1869, but the actual disestablishment was not to take place until the year 1871, at which time the Irish State Church, ceasing to exist as a state institution, became a free Episcopal Church. The historian May pronounces this "the most important ecclesiastical matter since the Reformation."
PROPOSED DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE CHURCH IN ENGLAND AND IN SCOTLAND. --The perfect application of the principle of religious equality demands, in the opinion of many English Liberals, the disestablishment of the State Church in England and in Scotland. [Footnote: The Established Church in Scotland is the Presbyterian.] They feel that for the government to maintain any particular sect, is to give the State a monopoly in religion. They would have the churches of all denominations placed on an absolute equality. Especially in Scotland is the sentiment in favor of disestablishment very strong.
3. GROWTH OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE EAST.
THE CLEW TO ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--Seeking the main fact of modern English history, Professor Seeley [Footnote: J. R. Seeley, in his work entitled The Expansion of England.] finds it in the expansion of England. He says, in substance, that the expansion of England in the New World and in Asia is the formula which sums up for England the history of the last three centuries. As the outgrowth of this extension into remote lands of English population or influence, England has come successively into sharp rivalry with three of the leading powers of Europe, her competitors in the field of colonization or in the race for empire. The seventeenth century stands out as an age of intense rivalry between England and Spain; the eighteenth was a period of gigantic competition between England and France; while the nineteenth has been an age of jealous rivalry between England and Russia.
England triumphed over Spain and France; it remains to be seen whether she will in like manner triumph over Russia.
We have space simply to indicate how England's foreign policies and wars during the present century have grown out of her Eastern connections, and her fear of the overshadowing influence of the Colossus of the North. RISE OF THE ENGLISH POWER IN INDIA.--And first, we must say a word respecting the establishment of English authority in India. By the close of the seventeenth century the East India Company (see p. 603) had founded establishments at Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, the three most important centres of English population and influence in India at the present time. The company's efforts to extend its authority in India were favored by the decayed state into which the Great Mogul Empire--founded in Northern India by the Tartar conquerors (see p. 461)--had fallen, and by the contentions of the independent native princes among themselves.
For a long time it was a matter of doubt whether the empire to be erected upon the ruins of the Great Mogul Empire and of the contending native states should be French or English. About the middle of the eighteenth century the former had the stronger foothold in the peninsula, just as previous to the French and Indian War in the New World they had the stronger hold upon the North American continent.
A terrible crime committed by the Nabob Surajah Dowlah of Bengal, a province lying along the lower courses of the Ganges, determined the fate not only of that native state, but of all India. Moved by jealousy of the growing power of the English, and encouraged by the French, the Nabob attacked and captured the English post at Calcutta. His one hundred and forty-six prisoners he crowded into a close dungeon, called the Black Hole. In the course of a sultry night the larger part of the unfortunate prisoners were suffocated.
The crime was avenged by Robert Clive, the English commander at Madras. With only 100 English soldiers and 2000 sepoys (native soldiers in European employ), he sailed for Calcutta, recaptured that place, and on the memorable field of Plassey, scattered to the winds the Nabob's army of 60,000 (1757).
The victory of Plassey established upon a firm basis the growing power of the Company. During the next one hundred years it extended its authority throughout almost every part of the peninsula. Many of the native princes were, and still are, allowed to retain their thrones, only they must now acknowledge the suzerainty or paramount authority of the English government.
We will now speak briefly of the most important wars and troubles in which England has been involved through her interests in India.
THE AFGHAN WAR OF 1838-1842.--One of the first serious wars into which England was drawn through her jealousy of Russia was what was known as the Afghan War. It was England's policy to maintain the Afghan state as a barrier between her East India possessions and Russia. Persuaded that the ruler of the Afghans, a usurper named Dost Mahommed, was inclined to a Russian alliance, the English determined to dethrone him, and put in his place the legitimate prince. This was done. The Afghans, however, resented this interference in their affairs. They arose in revolt, and forced the English army to retreat from the country. In the wild mountain passes leading from Afghanistan into India, the fleeing army, 16,000 in number, counting camp-followers, was cut off almost to a man. The English took signal vengeance. They again invaded the country, defeated the Afghans, punished some of their leaders, burned the chief bazaar of Cabul, and then withdrawing from the country, left the Afghans to themselves.
OPIUM WAR WITH CHINA (1840-1842).--The next war incited by British interest in India was the so-called Opium War with China.
During the first half of the present century the opium traffic between India and China grew into gigantic proportions, and became an important source of wealth to the British merchants, and of revenue to the Indian government. The Chinese government, however, awake to the enormous evils of the growing use of the narcotic, forbade the importation of the drug; but the British merchants, notwithstanding the imperial prohibition, persisted in the trade, and succeeded in smuggling large quantities of the article into the Chinese market. Finally, the government seized and destroyed all the opium stored in the warehouses of the British traders at Canton. This act, together with other "outrages," led to a declaration of war on the part of England. British troops now took possession of Canton, and the Chinese government, whose troops were as helpless as children before European soldiers, was soon forced to agree to the treaty of Nanking, by which the island of Hong-Kong was ceded to the English, several important ports were opened to British traders, and the perpetuation of the nefarious traffic in opium was secured.
THE CRIMEAN WAR (1854-1856).--Scarcely was the Opium War ended before England was involved in a gigantic struggle with Russia,--the Crimean War, already spoken of in connection with Russian history. From our present standpoint we can better understand why England threw herself into the conflict on the side of Turkey. She fought to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, in order that her own great rival, Russia, might be prevented from seizing Constantinople and the Bosporus, and from that point controlling the affairs of Asia through the command of the Eastern Mediterranean.
THE SEPOY MUTINY (1857-1858).--The echoes of the Crimean War had barely died away before England was startled by the most alarming intelligence from the country for the secure possession of which English soldiers had borne their part in the fierce struggle before Sebastopol.
In 1857 there broke out in the armies of the East India Company what is known as the Sepoy Mutiny. The causes of the uprising were various. The crowd of deposed princes was one element of discontent. A widespread conviction among the natives awakened by different acts of the English, that their religion was in danger, was another of the causes that led to the rebellion. There were also military grievances of which the native soldiers complained.
The mutiny broke out at Bengal. At different points, by preconcerted signals, the native regiments arose against their English officers and put them to death. [Footnote: The East India Company at this time had an army of nearly 300,000, of which number not more than 45,000 were English troops. The chief positions in the native regiments were held by English officers.] Delhi and Cawnpore were seized, and the English residents and garrisons butchered in cold blood. Fortunately many of the native regiments stood firm in their allegiance to the English, and with their aid the revolt was speedily quelled.
At the close of the war, the government of India, by act of Parliament, was taken out of the hands of the East India Company and vested in the English crown. Since this transfer, the Indian government has been conducted on the principle that "English rule in India should be for India." [Footnote: Within the last two or three decades the country has undergone in every respect a surprising transformation. Life and property are now as secure in India as in England, The railways begun by the East India Company have been extended in every direction, and now bind together the most distant provinces of the empire. All the chief cities are united by telegraph. Lines of steamers are established on the Indus and the Ganges. Public schools have been opened, and colleges founded. Several hundred newspapers, about half published in the native dialects, are sowing Western ideas broadcast among the people. The introduction of European science and civilization is rapidly undermining many of the old superstitions, particularly the ancient system of caste.]
LATER EVENTS: THE ENGLISH IN EGYPT.--It only remains for us to refer to some later matters which are more or less intimately connected with England's Eastern policy.
In 1874 Mr. Disraeli, who had then just succeeded Mr. Gladstone as prime minister, purchased, for $20,000,000, the 176,000 shares which the Khedive of Egypt held in the Suez Canal. This was to give England more perfect control of this all-important gateway to her East India possessions.
In 1878, towards the close of the Russo-Turkish War, England, it will be recalled, interfered in behalf of the Turks, and, by the presence of her iron-clads in the Bosporus, prevented the Russians from occupying Constantinople. In the treaty negotiations which followed, England received from Turkey the island of Cyprus.
In the year 1882 political and financial reasons combined led the English government, now conducted by Gladstone, to interfere in the affairs of Egypt. A mutinous uprising against the authority of the Khedive having taken place in the Egyptian army, an expedition was sent out under the command of Lord Wolseley for the purpose of suppressing the revolt, and by the restoration of the authority of the Khedive to render secure the Suez Canal, and protect the interest of English bondholders in Egyptian securities.
Three years later, in 1885, a second expedition had to be sent out to the same country. The Soudanese, subjects of the Khedive, encouraged by the disorganized condition of the Egyptian government, had revolted, and were threatening the Egyptian garrisons in the Soudan with destruction. Lord Wolseley was sent out a second time, to lead an expedition up the Nile to the relief of Khartoum, where General Gordon, a representative of the English government, was commanding the Egyptian troops, and trying--to use his own phrase--to "smash the Mahdi," the military prophet and leader of the Soudanese Arabs.
The expedition arrived too late, Khartoum having fallen just before the advance relief party reached the town. The English troops were now recalled, and the greater part of the Soudan abandoned to the rebel Arabs. Further complications seem likely to grow out of England's presence in Egypt.
CONCLUSION: THE NEW AGE.
The Age of Material Progress, or the Industrial Age.--History has been well likened to a grand dissolving view. While one age is passing away another is coming into prominence.
During the last fifty years the distinctive features of society have wholly changed. The battles now being waged in the religious and the political world are only faint echoes of the great battles of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. A new movement of human society has begun. Civilization has entered upon what may be called the Industrial Age, or the Age of Material Progress.
The decade between 1830 and 1840 was, in the phrase of Herzog, "the cradle of the new epoch." In that decade several of the greatest inventions that have marked human progress were first brought to practical perfection. Prominent among these were ocean steam navigation, railroads, and telegraphs. [Footnote: Ploetz in his Epitome of History, instructively compares these inventions to the three great inventions or discoveries-- the magnetic needle, gunpowder, and printing--that ushered in the Modern Age.] In the year 1830 Stephenson exhibited the first really successful locomotive. In 1836 Morse perfected the telegraph. In 1838 ocean steamship navigation was first practically solved.
The rapidity with which these inventions have been introduced into almost all parts of the world, partakes of the marvellous.
Within the last fifty years the continents have been covered with a perfect network of railroads, constructed at an enormous cost of labor and capital. The aggregate length of the world's steam railways in 1883 was about 275,000 miles, sufficient, to use Mulhall's illustration, to girdle the earth eleven times at the equator, or more than sufficient to reach from the earth to the moon. The continental lines of railways are made virtually continuous round the world by connecting lines of ocean steamers. Telegraph wires traverse the continents in all directions, and cables run beneath all the oceans of the globe.
By these inventions the most remote parts of the earth have been brought near together. A solidarity of commercial interests has been created. Thought has been made virtually cosmopolitan: a new and helpful idea or discovery becomes immediately the common possession of the world. Facilities for travel, by bringing men together, and familiarizing them with new scenes and different forms of society and belief, have made them more liberal and tolerant. Mind has been broadened and quickened. And by the virtual annihilation of time and space, governmental problems have been solved. The chief difficulties in maintaining a confederation of states widely separated have been removed, and such extended territories as those of the United States made practically as compact as the most closely consolidated European state. England, with her scattered colonies, may now, Professor Seeley thinks, well enough become a World Venice, with the oceans for streets. Furthermore, the steps of human progress have been accelerated a hundred-fold. The work of years, and of centuries even, is crowded into a day. Thus Japan, on the outskirts of the world, has been modified more by our civilization within the last decade or two, than Britain was modified by the civilization of Rome during the four hundred years that the island was connected with the empire.
But a still more important feature of the new epoch is the use of steam engines, electric motors, and machinery in the manufactures and the various other industries of mankind. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the great manufactures of the world were in their infancy. Under the impulse of modern inventions they have been carried to seeming perfection at a bound. New motors and improved machinery have increased incalculably the productive forces of society. This enormous augmentation of the power of production is one of the most significant features of the age.
The history of this wonderful age, so different from any preceding age, cannot yet be written, for no one can tell whether the epoch is just opening or is already well advanced. It may well be that we have already seen the greatest surprises of the age, and that the epoch is nearing its culmination, [Footnote: "It is probable," says Professor Ely, "that as we, after more than two thousand years, look back upon the time of Pericles with wonder and astonishment, as an epoch great in art and literature, posterity two thousand years hence will regard our era as forming an admirable and unparalleled epoch in the history of industrial invention." --French and German Socialism in Modern Times.] and that other than material development--let us hope intellectual and moral development--will characterize future epochs.